From haruo.hosoya at gmail.com Thu Dec 1 01:27:39 2016 From: haruo.hosoya at gmail.com (Haruo HOSOYA) Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2016 15:27:39 +0900 Subject: Connectionists: Researcher position at ATR Brain Labs (Kyoto, Japan) Message-ID: <7A9F99B9-EA98-4CDD-960E-1AB0CA0DA839@gmail.com> Dear all, ATR Brain Labs in Kyoto, Japan has two open positions in computational visual neuroscience. I would appreciate if you forward the following message to anyone who might be interested. Best regards, Haruo Hosoya, Senior Researcher Department of Dynamic Brain Imaging ATR Brain Labs, Cognitive Mechanisms Laboratories Open researcher positions at ATR Brain Labs., Kyoto, Japan ============================================ Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR), Kyoto, Japan, has open positions for researchers in computational visual neuroscience. Our institute has a long tradition in computational neuroscience and has recently been promoting theoretical studies of hierarchical vision models based on statistical learning theory (a.k.a. deep learning), with the emphasis on the bidirectional (feedforward and feedback) computation in the visual cortex. We seek for autonomous and motivated applicants who are interested in working on this research theme in collaboration with our research group. Haruo Hosoya, Ph.D. Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR), Kyoto, Japan 2016, December Project outline --------------------- It is well known that, in the visual cortex, a number of visual areas form a hierarchy with low-level to high-level feature representations, and perform bidirectional interactions through the feedforward and feedback circuitry. Such bidirectional computation has conventionally been considered to play roles in visual perception, imagery, information completion, selective attention, etc. However, our research group is considering that bidirectional computation may be far more essential in the visual system than previously thought. For example, we have recently released a theoretical model that proposes a potential role of bidirectional computation in visual representations of objects and facts in the higher visual cortex (http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/086637). We will continue to pursue other roles of the bidirectionality in various visual functions of the brain through developing new computational models based on learning theory and evaluating their visual processing capability, performance, and explainability of neuroscientific data. Furthermore, we are also interested in building a larger-scale hierarchical visual model that integrates various computational models developed in our group as well as pursuing its applicability in realistic problems. More on the project can be seen here: http://www.cns.atr.jp/~hosoya/project_outline.pdf. What's ATR? ------------------ ATR is a private company specialized to basic science founded in 1986. It is renowned for its long and unique tradition of computational neuroscience since the foundation, emphasizing the importance of mathematical understanding of computation in the brain for the technological innovation. Research in ATR is highly international and involves a number of scientists from all over the world for collaboration. The institute is located in Keihanna scientific city surrounded by the second largest city of Japan, Osaka, and two beautiful old capitals of Japan, Kyoto and Nara. Requirements for Researchers ----------------------------------------- Applicants must have a Ph.D. or be expected to get one before starting the job. The applicants are required to show expertise in a mathematical area, as well as strong interest in neuroscience and good programming experience. In particular, expertise in machine learning will be considered important. Additional knowledge in computation vision and computational neuroscience will also be welcome. Number of openings --------------------------- Two Employment conditions -------------------------------- Position : Full-time Researcher Tenure : Single year based contract, renewable based on evaluation Treatment: Based on individual performance Work Location: Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International (ATR) 2-2-2 Hikaridai, Seika-cho, Soraku-gun, Kyoto 619-0288, Japan Application materials ---------------------------- Please submit the following five materials to the contact address below, either in a printed or in an electronic form: ? 1 CV ? 2 List of publications ? 3 Reprints of 1-3 major publications of past projects ? 4 Essay (up to two pages in A4 or letter size) describing summary of your previous research, interest in our project, and other skills and experiences potentially useful for research. ? 5 Recommendation letters from two or more researchers * If submitted in printed form, original documents will not be returned. Judging system --------------------- After documentary examination, we ask for presentation and interview if needed. Starting date -------------------- Soon (negotiable) Deadline for application --------------------------------- Opens until positions are filled. Contact ----------- Department of Dynamic Brain Imaging ATR Cognitive Mechanisms Laboratories 2-2-2 Hikaridai, Seika-cho, Soraku-gun, Kyoto 619-0288, Japan Email: dbi-tvn at atr.jp at=@ Use of personal data ---------------------------- All personal data received will be properly managed and only be used for the purpose of recruitment. From massimiliano.pontil at gmail.com Thu Dec 1 03:00:28 2016 From: massimiliano.pontil at gmail.com (massimiliano.pontil at gmail.com) Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2016 09:00:28 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: 2 Postdocs in Machine Learning at the Italian Institute of Technology Message-ID: Hi, I have openings for 2 postdocs to start in 2017. If you're at NIPS, please email me to allow for the possibility of meeting in person. Areas of research interest include: - kernel methods - online learning - multitask and transfer learning - numerical optimization - reinforcement learning - representation learning - sparsity regularization - statistical learning theory Candidates must hold a PhD in Computer science or related discipline (mathematics, statistics, signal processing, operations research). Please note that outstanding applications in other areas will also be considered. Candidates should either have a strong background in machine learning theory and algorithms or strong programming skills involving machine learning algorithms and their applications. An internationally competitive salary package subject to experience will be offered. The scientific environment at IIT is a world-class one offering full support to do research at outstanding levels. The positions are based at IIT but collaborations and extended visits at University College London are possible. Interested applicants should submit CV, list of publications, a short statement of research interests and names of 2 references to applications at iit.it quoting ?2 Postdoctoral positions in Machine Learning? in the e-mail subject. To receive full consideration please apply before December 31, 2016. For more information: https://www.iit.it/careers/openings/opening/277-2-postdoctoral-positions-in-machine-learning Regards, Massimiliano Pontil From marco.baroni at unitn.it Thu Dec 1 08:21:48 2016 From: marco.baroni at unitn.it (Marco Baroni) Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2016 14:21:48 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: MAchine INtelligence @ NIPS: Call for participation Message-ID: (Apologies for multiple postings) What: MAchine INtelligence workshop at NIPS 2016 (MAIN at NIPS) When and Where: Fri Dec 9th 2016, 8:30am-12.30pm and 2pm-6pm Where: Centre Convencions Internacional, Barcelona (Spain) (co-located with NIPS) Website: https://mainatnips.github.io/ *** Motivation *** Recent years have seen the success of machine learning systems, in particular deep learning architectures, on specific challenges such as image classification and playing Go. Nevertheless, machines still fail on hallmarks of human intelligence such as the flexibility to quickly switch between a number of different tasks, the ability to creatively combine previously acquired skills in order to perform a more complex goal, the capacity to learn a new skill from just a few examples, or the use of communication and interaction to extend one's knowledge in order to accomplish new goals. This workshop aims to stimulate theoretical and practical advances in the development of machines endowed with human-like general-purpose intelligence, focusing in particular on benchmarks to train and evaluate progress in machine intelligence. The workshop will feature invited and contributed talks by top researchers from machine learning, AI, cognitive science and NLP, who will discuss with the audience their ideas about what are the most pressing issues we face in developing true AI and the best methods to measure genuine progress. The workshop will also introduce the new Environment for Communication-Based AI (CommAI-env) to the research community, encouraging discussion on how to make it the ultimate benchmark for communication-based machine intelligence. The Environment aims at being an interactive playground where systems can only succeed if they possess the hallmarks of intelligence we listed above. A prototype of the environment is available here: https://github.com/facebookresearch/CommAI-env *** Program *** 08:30-09:00 Introduction 09:00-09:20 Marco Baroni: A roadmap for communication-based AI 09:20-09:30 Allan Jabri: The commAI-env environment for communication-based AI 09:30-09:55 Raquel Fernandez: Human-like dialogue: Key challenges for AI 09:55-10:20 J?rgen Schmidhuber: Learning incrementally to become a general problem solver 10:20-10:30 Rudolf Kadlec, Ondrej Bajgar, Jan Kleindienst: From particular to general: A preliminary case study of transfer learning in reading comprehension 10:30-11:00 Coffee break 11:00-11:10 Marek Rosa, Jan Feyereisl: Consolidating the search for general AI 11:10-11:20 Alex Peysakhovich: Gaining insights from game theory about the emergence of communication 11:20-11:30 Tomo Lazovich, Matthew C. Graham, Troy M. Lau, Joshua C. Poore: Socially constructed machine intelligence 11:30-11:40 Douwe Kiela, Luana Bulat, Anita L. Vero, Stephen Clark: Virtual embodiment: A scalable long-term strategy for Artificial Intelligence research 11:40-12:30 Panel on basic requirements for machine intelligence: Angeliki Lazaridou (moderator), Katja Hofmann, Brenden Lake, J?rgen Schmidhuber, Arthur Szlam, Jan Feyereisl, Rudolf Kadlec, Armand Joulin 12:30-14:00 Lunch 14:00-14:25 Brenden Lake: Building machines that learn and think like people 14:25-14:50 Fernando Diaz: Malmo: Flexible and scalable evaluation in Minecraft 14:50-15:00 Jon Gauthier, Igor Mordatch: A paradigm for situated and goal-driven language learning 15:00-15:30 Coffee break 15:30-15:55 Arthur Szlam: In praise of fake AI 15:55-16:20 Emmanuel Dupoux: An evolutionary perspective on machine intelligence 16:20-16:45 Julian Togelius: Are video games the perfect environments for developing artificial general intelligence? Which kind of general intelligence? 16:45-16:55 Steven Hansen: Minimally naturalistic Artificial Intelligence 16:55-17:05 Gemma Boleda: Remarks on the CommAI-env 17:05-18:00 Panel on CommAI-env and other environments for the development of AI: Germ?n Kruszewski (moderator), Julian Togelius, Tomas Mikolov, Emmanuel Dupoux, Raquel Fernandez, Alex Peysakhovich, Gemma Boleda, Igor Mordatch *** Organizers *** Tomas Mikolov, Allan Jabri, Armand Joulin, Klemen Simonic (Facebook) Marco Baroni, Angeliki Lazaridou, Germ?n Kruszewski (University of Trento/Facebook) *** Contact *** main.at.nips2016 at gmail.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From csutton at inf.ed.ac.uk Thu Dec 1 13:10:01 2016 From: csutton at inf.ed.ac.uk (Charles Sutton) Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2016 18:10:01 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Machine Learning faculty opening: University of Edinburgh, UK Message-ID: <1AA03F7D-482E-41D2-AC1C-5B3D4C3211B1@inf.ed.ac.uk> New faculty position in ML at the University of Edinburgh. Deadline: 31 January 2017 Several Edinburgh machine learning faculty will be attending NIPS and available for informal discussions: Charles Sutton, Michael Gutmann, Guido Sanguinetti, Amos Storkey, Chris Williams. ====== Lecturer or Senior Lecturer or Reader in Machine Learning Applications are invited for a Lecturer in Machine Learning to join the School of Informatics, at the University of Edinburgh, as part of a multiyear expansion in machine learning, data science, and artificial intelligence. For an exceptional candidate, appointment to the position of Senior Lecturer or Reader will be considered. A lectureship is a full-time academic position roughly equivalent to an assistant professorship in other countries; senior lecturer and reader are roughly equivalent to associate professor. Multiple positions may be available. We seek candidates with research interests and experience in the theory and application of machine learning methods, with substantial publication records and strong research potential. Candidates from all areas of machine learning will be considered. The University of Edinburgh has the largest academic machine learning research group in Europe, with faculty including Chris Williams, Chris Bishop, Michael Gutmann, Iain Murray, Guido Sanguinetti, Amos Storkey, and Charles Sutton. We also benefit from close links to other active areas of artificial intelligence in the School, including natural language processing, speech processing, robotics, and computer vision. The School of Informatics is host to the EPRSC Centres for Doctoral Training in Data Science, in Robotics and Autonomous Systems, and in Pervasive Parallelism. The appointee will enjoy opportunities to supervise PhD students from these Centres and from other sources. The adjacent Thomas Bayes Centre for Data Technology will be the home for data-driven applied and translational research at Edinburgh. The University is one of the five partner universities in the UK's Alan Turing Institute for Data Science (ATI), providing opportunities to interact with ATI PhD students, research fellows and senior researchers. In addition, there are many opportunities to engage with other parts of the University and beyond in order to further the candidate's research agenda. The successful candidate will have a PhD; experience as an established researcher in the theory and application of machine learning methods; enthusiasm to undertake original research including leading a research group; ability to engage with undergraduate and postgraduate teaching and academic supervision; and the ability to be involved in enhancing eLearning and on-line teaching initiatives. Informal enquiries may be addressed to Charles Sutton Vacancy Reference: 038257 Lecturer Grade: UE08 (?39,324 - ?46,924) Senior Lecturer or Reader Grade: UE09 (?49,772 - ?55,998) Closing date: 31 January 2017 Interviews will be held in Edinburgh in early 2017. URL: https://www.vacancies.ed.ac.uk/pls/corehrrecruit/erq_jobspec_version_4.jobspec?p_id=038257 -- Charles Sutton * Reader in Machine Learning * University of Edinburgh Director, EPSRC CDT in Data Science * http://datascience.inf.ed.ac.uk/ Faculty Fellow, Alan Turing Institute * http://turing.ac.uk/ Please excuse brevity: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/email_monster The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336. From mccallum at cs.umass.edu Thu Dec 1 10:40:38 2016 From: mccallum at cs.umass.edu (Andrew McCallum) Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2016 10:40:38 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: Postdocs in ML, NLP at UMass Amherst Message-ID: <3A306C5C-BF6F-48BC-B58D-F0FC62B213D5@cs.umass.edu> Applications are invited for multiple postdoctoral fellowship positions working with Andrew McCallum at University of Massachusetts Amherst in various combinations of deep learning and other areas of machine learning; natural language processing; knowledge representation and logical reasoning, with deep learning; knowledge bases; application areas are flexible; current work includes reasoning about the scientific literature, career paths, peer review. The postdocs will be part of a large research group with many collaborative opportunities, both within the group as well as across the UMass Amherst's Center for Data Science and College of Information and Computer Sciences (which includes other faculty working in deep learning, NLP, machine learning, computer vision, databases, and information retrieval). UMass Amherst ranks 4th in AI among US universities by publications in top-tier venues. The UMass Amherst Center for Data Science recently announced at $15m gift from MassMutual to further expand faculty hiring. We also received a $5m gift for computing hardware, part of which was recently used to purchase over 400 GPU machines in support of deep learning. Surrounded by five colleges, Amherst is located in bucolic western New England within day-trip range of both Boston and New York. Successful applicants will have extensive research experience, an excellent publication record in one or more of the research areas above, creativity, and strong communication, experimentation, and coding skills. Examples of McCallum's previous postdocs and PhD students with academic placements: Sebastian Riedel, University College London Charles Sutton, University of Edinburgh David Mimno, Cornell Sameer Singh, UC Irvine Jinho Choi, Emory Benjamin Roth, Munich University Chris Pal, ?cole Polytechnique de Montr?al If you are interested, or have questions, please send email to Andrew McCallum > and Pam Mandler >. The University of Massachusetts is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity employer. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From m.gomez.rodriguez at gmail.com Thu Dec 1 14:49:24 2016 From: m.gomez.rodriguez at gmail.com (Manuel Gomez Rodriguez) Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2016 20:49:24 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Tenure-track openings at MPI-SWS Message-ID: Applications are invited for tenure-track faculty positions at the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems (MPI-SWS) in all areas related to the theory and practice of software systems, including security and privacy, embedded and mobile systems, distributed and parallel systems, computational social science, legal, economic, and social aspects of computing, NLP, machine learning, information and knowledge management, programming languages, algorithms and logic, and verification. A doctoral degree in computer science or related areas and an outstanding research record are required. Successful candidates are expected to build a team and pursue a highly visible research agenda, both independently and in collaboration with other groups. MPI-SWS, founded in 2005, is part of a network of over 80 Max Planck Institutes, Germany?s premier basic research facilities. MPIs have an established record of world-class, foundational research in the sciences, technology, and the humanities. The institute offers a unique environment that combines the best aspects of a university department and a research laboratory: Faculty enjoy academic freedom, receive institutional funding and attract additional third-party funds to build and lead a team of graduate students and post-docs; they supervise doctoral theses, and have the opportunity to teach graduate and undergraduate courses. The institute offers outstanding technical infrastructure and administrative support, as well as internationally competitive compensation. The institute is located in Kaiserslautern and Saarbruecken, in the tri-border area of Germany, France and Luxembourg. We maintain an international and diverse work environment and seek applications from outstanding researchers worldwide. The working language is English; knowledge of the German language is not required for a successful career at the institute. Qualified candidates should apply at the secure application form (http://apply.mpi-sws.org). To receive full consideration, applications should be received by December 16, 2016. The institute is committed to increasing the representation of minorities, women and individuals with physical disabilities in Computer Science. We particularly encourage such individuals to apply. The initial tenure-track appointment is for five years; it can be extended to seven years based on a midterm evaluation in the fourth year. A permanent contract can be awarded upon a successful tenure evaluation in the sixth year. If you are attending NIPS next week and would like to know more about it, please contact Manuel Gomez Rodriguez (manuelgr at mpi-sws.org). From gemma.boleda at upf.edu Thu Dec 1 10:45:37 2016 From: gemma.boleda at upf.edu (Gemma Boleda) Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2016 16:45:37 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: [Interviews @ NIPS 2016] Jobs: 2 PhD and 3 post-doc positions, Barcelona, ERC Grant on reference with neural networks Message-ID: Updates: - Interested in the jobs below and attending NIPS 2016? Get in touch and let's talk! (gemma DOT boleda AT upf DOT edu) - Apply now! Applications received by December 15 2016 will receive full consideration. --- * Job openings: 2 PhD student and 3 post-doc positions on computational approaches to reference with memory-enhanced neural networks * Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain Applications are welcome for 2 PhD student and 3 post-doc positions on computational approaches to reference with memory-enhanced neural networks. The positions are for at most 4 years, and will be funded by a 5-year European Research Council Starting Grant awarded to the project AMORE: A distributional MOdel of Reference to Entities (gboleda.utcompling.com/research-1/projects/amore). PROFILES We seek outstanding researchers with a genuine interest in how human language, communication, and cognition work, with any of the following backgrounds: Machine learning, specifically deep learning (of special interest are recurrent models and models with dynamic trainable memories); Computer Vision and the integration of Language and Vision; Computational semantics, formal semantics, and computational approaches to discourse (particularly on topics related to reference, including DRT or similar frameworks, coreference and anaphora, conceptual aspects of meaning, and distributional semantics). Advanced programming and mathematical skills are required for 2 of the 3 post-doc positions, at least basic skills for the other one. Experience and interest in dataset construction, especially via crowdsourcing, is a plus. For PhD positions, experience on specific project topics is not required. All researchers are expected to have excellent analysis and abstraction skills, and an interest in working in an interdisciplinary environment. If you think that your background is relevant to the research program of the project (see gboleda.utcompling.com/research-1/projects/amore) and you have good programming and quantitative skills, please do get in touch even if you do not fit the profiles above. RESEARCH ENVIRONMENT Universitat Pompeu Fabra is a small, research-oriented, highly international institution (www.upf.edu), placed 15th worldwide in Times Higher Education ranking "150 under 50". The project will be carried out at the Department of Translation and Language Sciences in the Communication Campus of UPF (www.upf.edu/campus/en/comunicacio), rich in researchers working on Linguistics, Computer Science, and Cognitive Science, and specifically on Computational Linguistics / Natural Language Processing. The AMORE team will strengthen the already strong profile of the university in these areas. Barcelona is a unique city, with a Mediterranean and cosmopolitan culture, and very livable (www.upf.edu/barcelona/en). DATES AND APPLICATION PhD positions start October 2017; earlier starting date possible, as a research assistant. Post-doc positions available starting February 1st 2017, and open until filled. Applications received by December 15 2016 will receive full consideration. Applications including a letter of motivation (at most 1 page) explaining why you are interested in this position and how your profile fits the project, CV, and the names and e-mail addresses of two referees should be sent as a single PDF file to Gemma Boleda (gemma DOT boleda AT upf DOT edu). We aim at building a diverse team; all applications are welcome, especially those of female researchers and members of other underrepresented collectives. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pierre-yves.oudeyer at inria.fr Fri Dec 2 06:03:36 2016 From: pierre-yves.oudeyer at inria.fr (Pierre-Yves Oudeyer) Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2016 12:03:36 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Call for applicants: Full-time tenure senior research position at Flowers Lab, Inria, Bordeaux, France Message-ID: Flowers Lab at Inria (Bordeaux, France) https://flowers.inria.fr Deadline: 16th december We are searching highly qualilified candidates for a tenure senior research position (full time research, no teaching mandatory). Candidates should have an outstanding academic track record in one or two of the following domains: 1) Computational modelling of cognitive development, including the following research topics and methods: - Models of exploration and active learning in humans and animals - Models of human reinforcement learning and decision making - Bayesian or neuronal models of development - Models of autonomous lifelong learning - Models of tool learning - Sensorimotor, language and social development - Strong experience of collaborations with developmental psychologists or neuroscientists 2) Lifelong autonomous machine learning and artificial intelligence, including: - Unsupervised deep reinforcement learning - Intrinsic motivation - Developmental learning, curriculum learning - Contextual bandit algorithms - Multitask and transfer learning - Hierarchical learning - Strong experience in benchmarking with robotic or virtual world setups As the Flowers lab domains of application are robotics/HRI/HCI and educational technologies, experience in one of these two domains would be a clear asset. Experience in writing successful grant proposals will also be considered positively. Candidates should have a strong postdoc experience after their PhD, or may already be at the level of occupying a research position in a university or research organization. The Flowers Lab: developmental robotics and lifelong multitask machine learning =================================================================== The Flowers Lab, headed by Pierre-Yves Oudeyer, gathers a team of ~20 members and has been one of the pioneers of developmental robotics and lifelong machine learning and artificial intelligence in the last decade, in particular through developping models of intrinsically motivated learning of repertoires of skills that have both contributed to advance understanding of human curiosity and development, and to advance incremental online multitask machine learning techniques in difficult high-dimensional robotic spaces. This work in the Flowers lab are conducted in the context of large international projects (e.g. ERC grant, European projects 3rdHand and DREAM, HFSP project Neurocuriosity), with interdisicplinary collaborations with other labs in neuroscience, psychology, machine learning and robotics. The successful candidates would be directly involved in these international collaborations. The Flowers Lab has is also developping applications of these concepts and techniques in the domain of educational technologies, including adaptive intelligent tutoring systems (using bandit algorithms), educational robotics, and software that stimulate curiosity and learning in humans. The Flowers lab has recently spin-off the Pollen Robotics startup company, and is involved in multiple collaborations with industrials through Inria's strong support towards impacting both science and industry. Inria and EnstaParistech =================== The lab is within Inria, which is a prestigious, and also the largest, public European research insitution focused on computer science, mathematics and their applications. Inria's teams and researchers (> 2800 employees) have received prestigious awards, coordinate many international projects, and have created strong innovations now used in many parts of industry. Inria research center in Bordeaux gathers around 300 researchers. The Flowers Lab is also associated to EnstaParisTech, which is a prestigious French engineering school (university). Bordeaux ======== The Flowers lab in Bordeaux is located in a great building on the border of one of the world most famous vineyard, and 10mn by tram from Bordeaux town center (and 2 hours from Paris through high-speed trains): https://www.inria.fr/en/centre/bordeaux Bordeaux has been recently rated by Lonely Planet as the world's best city to visit: http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/best-cities-in-the-world-top-10-lonely-planet-bordeaux-cape-town-la-a7379066.html Web === Flowers web site: https://flowers.inria.fr Neurocuriosity project: https://flowers.inria.fr/neurocuriosityproject/ Lifelong intrinsically motivated learning in robots: http://www.pyoudeyer.com/active-learning-and-artificial-curiosity-in-robots/ Inria: http://www.inria.fr How to apply =========== CVs and letters of motivation should be sent to Pierre-Yves Oudeyer (pierre-yves.oudeyer at inria.fr) before 16th december. Then, a pre-selection will be made and a full application with a detailed research statement and program will have to be submitted early february. The successful candidate would begin to work between september and december 2017. Pierre-Yves Oudeyer Research director, Inria Head of Flowers Lab Inria and Ensta ParisTech http://www.pyoudeyer.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From wachtler at biologie.uni-muenchen.de Fri Dec 2 08:22:49 2016 From: wachtler at biologie.uni-muenchen.de (Thomas Wachtler) Date: Fri, 02 Dec 2016 14:22:49 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: G-Node Advanced Course on Neural Data Analysis 2017 Message-ID: G-NODE ADVANCED COURSE ON NEURAL DATA ANALYSIS 2017 March 26 - April 8, 2017 Haus Overbach, Juelich-Barmen, Germany Techniques to record neuronal data from single neurons and population of neurons are rapidly improving. Meanwhile recordings are possible from hundreds of channels simultaneously while animals perform complex tasks. Thus also the analysis of such data becomes increasingly challenging. This advanced course aims at providing deeper insights in state-of-the-art questions in neuroscience, analysis approaches and how to formalize questions to neuronal data so they can be answered quantitatively. The course is addressed to excellent master and PhD students and young researchers who are interested in learning advanced techniques in data analytics and in getting hands-on experience in the analysis of electrophysiological data (multiple-parallel spike trains and local field potentials). In the first week of the course, international researchers will give lectures on statistical data analysis and data mining methods with accompanying exercises. In the second week the participants will analyze provided data on their own, with self-written code and/or by use of provided tool boxes. Participants are required to have a strong interest in data analysis, a background in mathematics or related fields, knowledge on algebra, matrix operations, and statistics, and need to have solid programming experiences (preferably in Python). DATE AND VENUE March 26 - April 8, 2017 Haus Overbach, Juelich-Barmen and Research Center Juelich, Germany COURSE INSTRUCTORS Moshe Abeles, Bar-Ilan Univ, Israel J?rgen Dammers, Juelich Research Center, Germany Michael Denker, Juelich Research Center and RWTH Aachen Univ, Germany Sonja Gr?n, Juelich Research Center and RWTH Aachen Univ, Germany Martin Nawrot, University of Cologne, Germany Thomas Wachtler, G-Node, LMU Munich, Germany Byron Yu, Carnegie Mellon Univ Pittsburgh, USA KEYNOTE SPEAKERS Alain Destexhe, CNRS, France Yifat Prut, Hebrew Univ Jerusalem, Israel TOPICS COVERED Single neuron properties and statistics ? Modeling stochastic processes ? Surrogate methods ? Detection of spatio-temporal patterns ? Statistical analysis of massively parallel spike data ? Higher-order correlation analyses ? Spike-LFP relationship ? Population coding ? State space analysis ? Machine learning ? Artifact rejection ? MEG source localization ? Data mining ? Data management, reproducibility, data sharing ? MNE toolbox, Elephant toolbox REQUIREMENTS Applicants should be familiar with linear algebra, probability, differential and integral calculus and experienced using Python or Matlab. Preparatory reading material will be provided. Students should bring their own laptops and should be able to install software on their system. Students that do not have a suitable laptop should indicate this immediately after acceptance for the course. We will be able to provide a small number of laptops for the time of the course. COURSE FEE A course fee of 1.000 Euros will be charged to accepted students. The course fee covers accommodation and meals, including coffee breaks. A few stipends will be available to support students with documented need of funding. HOUSING Accommodation in 2-bed rooms for students will be provided at the course site. HOW TO APPLY The application should include ? a letter of motivation (max 1 page) ? curriculum vitae (please indicate the relevant courses you have taken) ? description of programming experience ? a letter of recommendation. Please send all documents as PDF to . DEADLINES Applications must be received by JANUARY 1, 2017. Early application is encouraged because number of participants is limited. Notifications of acceptance will be given by mid January 2017. ORGANIZERS Sonja Gr?n, Juelich Research Center and RWTH Aachen Univ, Germany Martin Nawrot, University of Cologne, Germany Thomas Wachtler, G-Node, Ludwig-Maximillians-Universit?t M?nchen, Germany -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From terry at salk.edu Fri Dec 2 21:16:28 2016 From: terry at salk.edu (Terry Sejnowski) Date: Fri, 02 Dec 2016 18:16:28 -0800 Subject: Connectionists: NEURAL COMPUTATION - December 1, 2016 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Neural Computation - Volume 28, Number 12 - December 1, 2016 Available online for download now: http://www.mitpressjournals.org/toc/neco/28/12 ----- Note A Universal Approximation Theorem for Mixture-of-Experts Models No Access Hien D. Nguyen, Luke R. Lloyd-Jones, Geoffrey J. McLachlan Letters Neural Mechanism to Simulate a Scale-invariant Future Karthik H Shankar, Inder Singh, and Marc W. Howard Derivation of Human Chromatic Discrimination Ability from an Information-theoretical Notion of Distance in Color Space Maria da Fonseca, Ines Samengo Efficient Neural Codes That Minimize Lp Reconstruction Error Zhuo Wang, B.S., Alan A Stocker, and Daniel D. Lee On Decoding Grid-cell Population Codes Using Approximate Belief Propagation Yongseok Yoo, Woori Kim Selective Interareal Synchronization Through Gamma Frequency Differences and Slower-Rhythm Gamma Phase Reset Thomas Burwick, Alexandros Bouras A Universal Approximation Theorem for Mixture of Experts Models Hien D Nguyen, Luke R Lloyd-Jones, and Geoffrey J. McLachlan Non-parametric E-mixture Estimation Ken Takano, Hideitsu Hino, Shotaro Akaho, and Noboru Murata Multiple Diffusion Models to Compare Saccadic and Manual Responses for Inhibition of Return William Joseph MacInnes Exponential Stability of Almost Periodic Solutions for Memristor-based Neural Networks With Distributed Leakage Delays Changjin Xu, Peiluan Li, and Yicheng Pang Per-Round Knapsack Constrained Linear Submodular Bandits Baosheng Yu, Meng Fang, and Dacheng Tao ------------ ON-LINE -- http://www.mitpressjournals.org/neuralcomp SUBSCRIPTIONS - 2016 - VOLUME 28 - 12 ISSUES Student/Retired $78 Individual $138 Institution $1,108 MIT Press Journals, One Rogers Street, Cambridge, MA 02142-1209 Tel: (617) 253-2889 FAX: (617) 577-1545 journals-cs at mit.edu ------------ From a.hyvarinen at ucl.ac.uk Fri Dec 2 13:50:22 2016 From: a.hyvarinen at ucl.ac.uk (Aapo Hyvarinen) Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2016 19:50:22 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Unsupervised deep learning post-doc at Gatsby Message-ID: Research Associate Position (Training Fellowship - Machine Learning) on unsupervised deep learning, supervised by Aapo Hyv?rinen The Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit (UCL, UK) invites applications for a training fellowship in machine learning. The Gatsby Unit has significant interests across a range of areas in machine learning, including unsupervised learning, reinforcement learning, Bayesian statistical theory, nonparametric methods, kernel methods, optimization, and applications to neuroscience, linguistics, vision and bioinformatics. We actively apply these methods to problems in both theoretical and data-driven neuroscience. Machine learning research at the Gatsby Unit is led by Arthur Gretton, Aapo Hyv?rinen and Maneesh Sahani. For further details of our research please see: http://www.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk/research.html This fellowship in particular is supervised by Aapo Hyv?rinen, and continues our cutting-edge research on unsupervised deep learning, nonlinear independent component analysis and related methods. See e.g. http://www.gatsby.ucl.ac.uk/~aapoh/papers/NIPS16.pdf The Gatsby Unit is a world-class Centre for theoretical neuroscience and machine learning providing a unique environment in which a critical mass of researchers interact closely with each other and with other world-class research groups in related departments at UCL. A cross-faculty Centre for Computational Statistics and Machine Learning opened at UCL in 2006, spanning the departments of Computer Science, Statistical Science and the Gatsby Unit. The Alan Turing Institute, a national data science institute of which UCL is a founding partner, is located next to the UCL campus: this will enable joint research with faculty from UCL and the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Warwick, and Edinburgh. Candidates are required to demonstrate a very strong analytical background in machine learning, statistics, computer science, physics or engineering. Candidates must have a PhD in a relevant subject area by the agreed start date of the position, and a publication record in highly ranked conferences and journals. Training fellowships are funded by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation and are part of a continuing programme of training postdoctoral researchers in the computational neuroscience / machine learning discipline. The position is available for an initial period of between one and two years. Funding is specifically for the purpose of training a succession of researchers. To ensure the intellectual renewal of the unit, training fellows are not funded beyond a maximum three year period. Applications must be made online via the UCL job vacancies website: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/hr/jobs/. (The web site may not show this vacancy yet, but should do so soon.) Please be sure to attach to your online application a copy of your CV, statement of research interests, and full contact details (including e-mail addresses) for three academic referees. CVs should include: education history, details of current or most recent position and details of previous employment or fellowships. Incomplete applications will not be reviewed by the selection committee. The closing date for applications is 4th January, 2017. If you're attending NIPS in Barcelona, you can meet me there. Aapo Hyv?rinen From Hong.Yu at umassmed.edu Fri Dec 2 09:47:07 2016 From: Hong.Yu at umassmed.edu (Yu, Hong) Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2016 14:47:07 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Machine Learning and NLP Postdoc Positions at the UMass Medical School Message-ID: Postdoc Positions: Deep Learning and Natural Language Processing in the Healthcare Domain The University of Massachusetts Medical School is recruiting outstanding candidates for postdoctoral positions to join a rapidly growing research group: http://bio-nlp.org/, a joint lab in both the Medical School and the Computer Science at Amherst, has several research projects in information retrieval, extraction, summarization and natural language generation, and predictive modeling. Ideal candidates must have a PhD in Computer Science or related areas. Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare is a promising fast-growing research area with a great potential for academic positions. Electronic health records and other resources such as online forums provide exciting research opportunities for machine learning and natural language processing. We are the pioneer in developing deep learning approaches to detect events in electronic health records. We are interested in recruiting postdocs to join our innovative team of students, postdocs, physicians, statisticians, and health service researchers to develop innovative health analytic solutions. The University of Massachusetts Medical School is one of the fastest growing medical schools in the country, attracting more than $300 million in research funding annually. A perennial top finisher in the annual US News & World Report ranking of primary care medical schools, UMMS comprises a medical school, graduate school of nursing, graduate school of biomedical sciences and an active research enterprise, and is a leader in health sciences education, research and public service. A doctoral program in Clinical and Population Health Research is housed in the Department. The clinical partner of the University of Massachusetts Medical School is UMass Memorial Health Care, the main provider of healthcare services in Central Massachusetts. The University of Massachusetts-Amherst, College of Information and Computer Science ranks 4th in AI among US universities by publications in top-tier venues. Applications: Applicants should contact hong.yu at umassmed.edu; or hong.yu at cs.umass.edu As an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer, UMMS recognizes the power of a diverse community and encourages applications from individuals with varied experiences, perspectives and backgrounds. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kau.subbu at gmail.com Fri Dec 2 17:15:05 2016 From: kau.subbu at gmail.com (Kaushik Subramanian) Date: Fri, 2 Dec 2016 14:15:05 -0800 Subject: Connectionists: 1st Call For Papers: Adaptive and Learning Agents Workshop at AAMAS2017 (Sao Paulo, Brazil) Message-ID: ** Apologies if you receive more than one copy. Please share with students and colleagues. ** Hi Everyone, We are organizing the next iteration of the Autonomous Learning Agents (ALA) workshop at AAMAS next year in Brazil. Please find the CfP below. ******************************************************* Adaptive and Learning Agents Workshop at AAMAS2017 (Sao Paulo, Brazil) http://ala2017.it.nuigalway.ie/ Submission deadline: FEBRUARY 1, 2017 ******************************************************* TL;DR: * AAMAS workshop with a long and successful history, now in its ninth edition. * All aspects of adaptive and learning agents and multi-agent systems * Open to original research papers, work-in-progress, and visionary outlook papers, as well as recently published journal papers * ACM proceedings format up to 8 pages for original research, up to 6 pages for work-in-progress and outlook papers (shorter papers are also welcome and will not be judged differently) and 2 pages for recently published journal papers. * Accepted papers are eligible for inclusion in a special issue journal * Submissions through Easychair: https://easychair.org/ conferences/?conf=ala2017 ******************************************************* IMPORTANT DATES: * Submission Deadline: February 1, 2017 * Notification of acceptance: March 2, 2017 * Camera-ready copies: March 17, 2017 * Workshop: May 8-9, 2017 ******************************************************* OVERVIEW Adaptive and learning agents, particularly those interacting with each other in a multi-agent setting, are becoming increasingly prominent as the size and complexity of real-world systems grows. How to adaptively control, coordinate and optimize such systems is an emerging multi-disciplinary research area at the intersection of Computer Science, Control theory, Economics, and Biology. The ALA workshop will focus on agent and multi-agent systems which employ learning or adaptation. The goal of this workshop is to increase awareness and interest in adaptive agent research, encourage collaboration and give a representative overview of current research in the area of adaptive and learning agents and multi-agent systems. It aims at bringing together not only scientists from different areas of computer science but also from different fields studying similar concepts (e.g., game theory, bio-inspired control, mechanism design). This workshop will focus on all aspects of adaptive and learning agents and multi-agent systems with a particular emphasis on how to modify established learning techniques and/or create new learning paradigms to address the many challenges presented by complex real-world problems. The topics of interest include but are not limited to: * Novel combinations of reinforcement and supervised learning approaches * Integrated learning approaches that work with other agent reasoning modules like negotiation, trust models, coordination, etc. * Supervised multi-agent learning * Reinforcement learning (single and multi-agent) * Planning (single and multi-agent) * Reasoning (single and multi-agent) * Distributed learning * Adaptation and learning in dynamic environments * Evolution of agents in complex environments * Co-evolution of agents in a multi-agent setting * Cooperative exploration and learning to cooperate and collaborate * Learning trust and reputation * Communication restrictions and their impact on multi-agent coordination * Design of reward structure and fitness measures for coordination * Scaling learning techniques to large systems of learning and adaptive agents * Emergent behavior in adaptive multi-agent systems * Game theoretical analysis of adaptive multi-agent systems * Neuro-control in multi-agent systems * Bio-inspired multi-agent systems * Applications of adaptive and learning agents and multi-agent systems to real world complex systems ******************************************************* SUBMISSION DETAILS Papers can be submitted through EasyChair: https://easychair.org/ conferences/?conf=ala2017 We invite submission of original work, up to 8 pages in length in the ACM proceedings format (i.e. following the AAMAS formatting instructions). This includes work that has been accepted as poster only at AAMAS 2017. Additionally, we welcome submission of preliminary results, i.e. work-in-progress, as well as visionary outlook papers that lay out directions for future research in a specific area, both up to 6 pages in length, although shorter papers are very much welcome, and will not be judged differently. Finally, we also accept recently published journal papers in the form of a 2 page abstract. All submissions will be peer-reviewed (single-blind). The most "visionary? paper will be published by Springer in a book under the Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence (LNAI) - Hot Topics series. The book will be a compilation of the most visionary papers of the AAMAS-2017 Workshops, where one paper will be selected from each AAMAS-2017 workshop. Additionally, a "best paper" will be published by Springer in a book under the Communications in Computer and Information Science (CCIS) series. The book will be a compilation of the best papers of the AAMAS-2017 Workshops, where one paper will be selected from each AAMAS-2017 workshop. Authors of the selected most visionary paper and the best paper are expected to provide their latex files promptly upon request. Accepted work will be allocated time for poster and possibly oral presentation during the workshop. Papers accepted at the workshop will also be eligible for inclusion in a special issue published after the workshop. We look forward to your submissions, - Tim Brys, Anna Harutyunyan, Patrick Mannion, Kaushik Subramanian (Organizing Committee) ================================================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dr_ravirao at hotmail.com Sat Dec 3 17:09:46 2016 From: dr_ravirao at hotmail.com (Ravi Rao) Date: Sat, 3 Dec 2016 22:09:46 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Second CFP: IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems: Special Issue on Multi-modal Integration and Development In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems Special Issue on Multi-modal Integration and Development I. Aim And Scope Traditionally, researchers in computational intelligence, cognitive science and neuroscience have focused on one sensory modality at a time, such as vision, audition or touch. This has led to a fundamental understanding of the encoding processes involved for each sensory pathway. The time is now ripe for expanding the focus of this research to investigate the integration of multi-modal inputs. Though the field of neuroscience has identified higher-level convergence zones for multimodal input, there are few computational models that faithfully replicate the workings of these circuits. We note that the vertebrate brain has evolved in a world where stimuli from objects contain multiple sensory modalities. There is also a strong epigenetic, developmental aspect of multi-sensory processing and multimodal integration, as evidenced by results in the experimental literature. This leads to a multi-modal developmental perspective, where several brain structures are devoted to the coordinated representation and processing of these signals, including the hippocampus for memory formation and the basal ganglia for motor action. These are fundamental to understanding processes that govern cognition and mental development. II. Themes The purpose of this Special Issue on Multi-modal Integration is to advance the state of the art in our understanding of neural, cognitive and computational models that govern multi-modal processing. We welcome contributions in areas such as audio-visual processing, visuo-haptic processing and visuo-motor processing. Furthermore, the control of motor action also involves multi-modal processing such as combining proprioception with visual feedback for target tracking. Topics relevant to this special issue include, but are not limited to * Audio-visual processing * Visuo-haptic processing * Computational models of multi-sensory processing * Learning mechanisms for sensory integration * Multi-modal development mechanisms * Motor integration with sensory inputs * Models of sensory convergence * Modeling of proprioceptive inputs * Adaptation mechanisms for sensory deficits * Modeling of proprioceptive inputs * Subcortical models of sensory integration III. Submission Manuscripts should be prepared according to the "Information for Authors" of the journal found at http://cis.ieee.org/publications.html and submissions should be done through the IEEE TCDS Manuscript center: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tcds-ieee and please select the category "SI: Multi-Modal Integration and Development". IV. Important Dates 15 Jan 2017 -- Deadline for manuscript submission 15 Apr 2017 - Notification of authors 15 May 2017- Deadline for revised manuscripts 15 June 2017- Final version For further information, please contact one of the following Guest Editors. V. Guest Editors Dr. A. Ravishankar Rao School of Computer Science and Engineering, Fairleigh Dickinson University, USA ravirao at fdu.edu Dr. Yoonsuck Choe, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Texas A&M University, USA choe at tamu.edu Dr. Srinivasa Chakravarthy Dept. of Biotechnology, IIT Madras, India schakra at ee.iitm.ac.in ________________________________ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From aestuary at gmail.com Sun Dec 4 15:11:45 2016 From: aestuary at gmail.com (Charley C) Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2016 15:11:45 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: ACL 2017 - Call For System Demonstrations Message-ID: Call For System Demonstrations The ACL 2017 System Demonstration Program Committee invites proposals for the Demonstrations Program. Submissions may range from early research prototypes to mature production-ready systems. Of particular interest are publicly available open-source or open-access systems. We would like to strongly encourage demonstrations of industrial systems as long as they prove technologically innovative given the current state of the art of theory and applied research in computational linguistics. Areas of interest include all topics related to theoretical and applied computational linguistics, such as (but not limited to) the topics listed on the main conference website: http://acl2017.org Accepted submissions will be published in a companion volume of the ACL 2017 conference proceedings, and will be presented during two demo sessions along with accompanying posters. Please note: Commercial sales and marketing activities are not appropriate in the Demonstrations Program and should be arranged as part of the Exhibit Program. BEST DEMO AWARD This year we will also award a Best Demo Award! This will encourage researchers to make their code publicly available and in the form of an end-to-end runnable system. IMPORTANT DATES Submission Deadline Wednesday March 1, 2017 Notification of Acceptance Wednesday April 5, 2017 Camera Ready Due Saturday April 22, 2017 Note: All deadlines are 11:59PM Pacific Time. SUBMISSION INFORMATION Submitted systems may be of the following types: Natural Language Processing systems or system components Application systems using language technology components Software tools for computational linguistics research Software for demonstration or evaluation Software supporting learning or education Tools for data visualization and annotation Development tools Developers should outline the design of their system and provide sufficient details to allow the evaluation of its validity, quality, and relevance to computational linguistics. Pointers to web sites running a demo preview will also be helpful. For non web-based demos, it is possible to submit a short (~2 minute) screencast video demonstrating the system. This screencast will be used to evaluate the paper, but won?t be published unless requested. We encourage the authors to include visual aids (e.g., screenshots, snapshots, or diagrams) in the paper. However, there will be place on the START website to upload additional material, if needed. If you choose to submit a screencast, please upload the video to some hosting site (YouTube, Vimeo, etc.) and include the link in your submission. Demo submissions should also clearly indicate if any computer equipment is expected to be provided by the local organizer. If so, please specify desired hardware platform, hard disk and memory capacity, operating system and other software needed in order to run the demo. Submissions may consist of 6 pages (including references. We strongly recommend the use of ACL LaTeX style files tailored for this year?s conference. Submissions must conform to the official style guidelines, which are contained in the style files, and they must be in PDF format. Style files and other information about paper formatting requirements will be made available on this website. REVIEWING POLICY Reviewing will be single-blind, so authors do not need to conceal their identity. The paper should include the authors? names and affiliations. Self-references are also allowed. CONTACT INFORMATION Demo co-chairs: Mohit Bansal (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) and Heng Ji (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute) Email: acl2017-demochairs at googlegroups.com ACLWeb link: https://www.aclweb.org/portal/content/call-acl-2017-system-demonstrations-and-new-best-demo-paper-award -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tarek.besold at googlemail.com Sun Dec 4 15:14:47 2016 From: tarek.besold at googlemail.com (Tarek R. Besold) Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2016 21:14:47 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Call for Participation: "Cognitive Computation - Integrating Neural and Symbolic Approaches" @ NIPS 2016 (Workshop, Friday, December 9, 2016) Message-ID: <00a101d24e6b$103bafe0$30b30fa0$@gmail.com> **************************************************** Cognitive Computation: Integrating Neural and Symbolic Approaches (CoCo @ NIPS 2016) **************************************************** Workshop at NIPS 2016, Barcelona, Spain December 09, 2016 == WORKSHOP WEBPAGE == http://www.neural-symbolic.org/CoCo2016/ == KEYNOTE SPEAKERS == Barbara Hammer, Bielefed University Pascal Hitzler, Wright State University Risto Miikkulainen, University of Texas at Austin & Sentient Technologies, Inc. Dan Roth, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Kristina Toutanova, Microsoft Research == PANELISTS == Yoshua Bengio, University of Montreal Marco Gori, University of Siena Alessio Lomuscio, Imperial College London Gary Marcus, New York University & Geometric Intelligence, Inc. Stephen Muggleton, Imperial College London Michael Witbrock, IBM Research == MISSION STATEMENT == While early work on knowledge representation and inference was primarily symbolic, the corresponding approaches subsequently fell out of favor, and were largely supplanted by connectionist methods. In this workshop, we will work to close the gap between the two paradigms, and aim to formulate a new unified approach that is inspired by our current understanding of human cognitive processing. This is important to help improve our understanding of Neural Information Processing and build better Machine Learning systems, including the integration of learning and reasoning in dynamic knowledge-bases, and reuse of knowledge learned in one application domain in analogous domains. The workshop brings together established leaders and promising young scientists in the fields of neural computation, logic and artificial intelligence, knowledge representation, natural language understanding, machine learning, cognitive science and computational neuroscience. Invited lectures by senior researchers will be complemented with presentations based on contributed papers reporting recent work (following an open call for papers) and a poster session, giving ample opportunity for participants to interact and discuss the complementary perspectives and emerging approaches. The workshop targets a single broad theme of general interest to the vast majority of the NIPS community, namely translations between connectionist models and symbolic knowledge representation and reasoning for the purpose of achieving an effective integration of neural learning and cognitive reasoning, called neural-symbolic computing. The study of neural-symbolic computing is now an established topic of wider interest to NIPS with topics that are relevant to almost everyone studying neural information processing. == KEYWORDS == The following list gives some (but by far not all) relevant keywords for the CoCo @ NIPS 2016 workshop: - neural-symbolic computing; - language processing and reasoning; - cognitive agents; - multimodal learning; - deep networks; - knowledge extraction; - symbol manipulation; - variable binding; - memory-based networks; - dynamic knowledge-bases; - integration of learning and reasoning; - explainable AI. == WORKSHOP ORGANIZERS == - Tarek R. Besold (University of Bremen, Germany) - Antoine Bordes (Facebook AI Research, USA) - Artur d'Avila Garcez (City University London, UK) - Greg Wayne (Google DeepMind, UK) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From zemel at cs.toronto.edu Sun Dec 4 17:54:41 2016 From: zemel at cs.toronto.edu (Richard Zemel) Date: Sun, 4 Dec 2016 17:54:41 -0500 (EST) Subject: Connectionists: Machine Learning faculty openings: University of Toronto Message-ID: Several faculty members will be attending NIPS this week, and available for informal discussions: David Duvenaud, Sanja Fidler, Roger Grosse, Dan Roy, Raquel Urtasun, and Richard Zemel Five positions are available immediately. Two are joint tenure-stream Assistant Professor appointments in the Department of Computer Science (51%) and the Department of Statistical Sciences (49%). We are interested in candidates in all areas of computer science and statistical sciences that touch upon data visualization and analytics in the broadest possible sense, including machine learning. A third position is in all areas of computer science that touch upon cognitive science in the broadest possible sense. The final two positions are for robotics candidates: the Department of Mathematical and Computational Sciences at the University of Toronto Mississauga invites applications for two tenure-stream positions at the rank of assistant and associate professor in the area of robotics, again in the broadest possible sense. These positions are part of a multi-year expansion in machine learning at the University of Toronto. We seek candidates with research interests and experience in the theory and application of machine learning methods, with substantial publication records and strong research potential. Candidates from all areas of machine learning will be considered. Multiple positions will be available. If you are attending NIPS and would like to know more about these positions, please contact one of us. From ak.ak159 at googlemail.com Mon Dec 5 08:08:45 2016 From: ak.ak159 at googlemail.com (Anna Kreshuk) Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2016 14:08:45 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: PhD student and software engineer positions at Heidelberg University Message-ID: Image Analysis and Learning group at the University of Heidelberg is looking for a scientific software developer and a PhD student to help us run interactive machine learning in a distributed environment. We are developing the ilastik toolkit - open source software for interactive learning-based image analysis. ilastik is used for a broad spectrum of applications, but is especially popular in biomedical sciences. We are developing it jointly with HHMI Janelia Research Campus and have ambitious goals of contributing directly to cutting-edge neuroscience research. More details: http://hciweb.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de/node/6117 and http://hciweb.iwr.uni-heidelberg.de/node/6118 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From m.plumbley at surrey.ac.uk Mon Dec 5 12:45:51 2016 From: m.plumbley at surrey.ac.uk (m.plumbley at surrey.ac.uk) Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2016 17:45:51 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Reminder: SPARS 2017 CfP deadline in 1 week (Mon Dec 12, 2016) Message-ID: Dear Connectionists, A quick reminder that the deadline for submission to SPARS 2017 is in 1 week, on Monday 12 December 2016. Please forward this call to any colleagues to may be interested. Apologies for cross-posting. Best wishes, Mark Plumbley ============================================================================== ------------------------------------------ SPARS 2017 Signal Processing with Adaptive Sparse Structured Representations Lisbon, Portugal - June 5-8, 2017 Submission deadline: December 12, 2016 http://spars2017.lx.it.pt/ ------------------------------------------ CALL FOR PAPERS The Signal Processing with Adaptive Sparse Structured Representations (SPARS) workshop aims to bring together people from statistics, engineering, mathematics, and computer science, fostering the exchange and dissemination of new ideas and results, both applied and theoretical, on the general area of sparsity-related techniques and computational methods, for high dimensional data analysis, signal processing, and related applications. Contributions (talks and demos) are solicited as one-page abstracts, which may extend to a second page in order to include figures, tables and references. Talks should present recent and novel research results. We welcome abstract submissions for technological demonstrations of the mathematical topics within our scope. Topics of interest include (but are not limited to): * Sparse coding and representations, and dictionary learning * Sparse and low-rank approximation algorithms * Compressive sensing and learning * Dimensionality reduction and feature extraction * Sparsity in approximation theory, information theory, and statistics * Low-complexity/low-dimensional regularization * Statistical/Bayesian models and algorithms for sparsity * Sparse network theory and analysis * Sparsity and low-rank regularization * Applications PLENARY SPEAKERS: * Yoram Bresler, University of Illinois, USA * Volkan Cevher, ?cole Polytechnique F?d?rale de Lausanne, Switzerland * Jalal Fadili, ?cole Nationale Sup?rieure d'Ing?nieurs de Caen, France * Anders Hansen, University of Cambridge, UK * Gitta Kutyniok, Technische Universit?t Berlin, Germany * Philip Schniter, Ohio State University, USA * Eero Simoncelli, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, NYU, USA * Rebecca Willett, University of Wisconsin, USA VENUE: SPARS 2017 will be held at Instituto Superior T?cnico (IST), the engineering school of the University of Lisbon, Portugal. IMPORTANT DATES: * Submission deadline: December 12, 2016 * Notification of acceptance: March 27, 2017 * Summer School: May 31-June 2, 2017 (tbc) * Workshop: June 5-8, 2017 CHAIRS: Mario A. T. Figueiredo, Instituto Superior T?cnico Mark Plumbley, University of Surrey FURTHER INFORMATION: http://spars2017.lx.it.pt/ ============================================================================== -- Prof Mark D Plumbley Professor of Signal Processing Centre for Vision, Speech and Signal Processing (CVSSP) University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, GU2 7XH, UK Email: m.plumbley at surrey.ac.uk From todd.gureckis at nyu.edu Mon Dec 5 13:54:29 2016 From: todd.gureckis at nyu.edu (Todd Gureckis) Date: Mon, 5 Dec 2016 13:54:29 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: Tenure-track opening at NYU (Psychology + Center for Data Science) Message-ID: <82A47823-20D3-40DC-B167-4C053FABD4B9@nyu.edu> The Department of Psychology and the Center for Data Science (CDS) at New York University invite applications for an open rank tenure-track faculty position. The position is to be shared between the two departments. The anticipated start date is September 1, 2017, pending budgetary and administrative approval. QUALIFICATIONS Successful applicants will contribute to research and teaching in the following example areas: (1) Utilization of new methods and technologies for studying human behavior, including naturalistic datasets capturing real-world interactions; (2) New computational techniques for modeling human behavior, such as disentangling causal from correlational patterns, for dealing with unstructured and noisy data, and for improving the quality of statistical inference (e.g., new algorithms from statistics and machine learning); (3) The development of new technical infrastructure that can shed insight into human behavior including the design of novel experimental approaches to the study of behavior; (4) Establish deeper connections between human and machine approaches to extracting knowledge from data, potentially leading to new technologies for studying the mind and new algorithms for data science informed by psychological research (e.g., artificial intelligence and machine learning). Applicants that bridge between the existing research strengths of the Psychology Department and the Center for Data Science are encouraged. In addition to advancing a research program capable of attracting outside funding, applicants will be expected to contribute to the teaching missions of both the Psychology department and the Center for Data Science. APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS Applications should include CV, statement of research (no more than four pages) and teaching interests (no more than two pages), at least three representative publications, and at least three letters of reference. Review of applications will begin Jan 15th, 2017 and will continue until the position is filled. To apply, visit https://apply.interfolio.com/39593. Review of applications will begin January 15th, 2017 and will continue until the position is filled. The electronic application should include a CV, statements of research (no more than four pages) and teaching interests (no more than two pages), at least three representative publications, and at least three letters of reference. New York University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. New York University is an Equal Opportunity Employer. New York University is committed to a policy of equal treatment and opportunity in every aspect of its hiring and promotion process without regard to race, color, creed, religion, sex, pregnancy or childbirth (or related medical condition), sexual orientation, partnership status, gender and/or gender identity or expression, marital, parental or familial status, caregiver status, national origin, ethnicity, alienage or citizenship status, veteran or military status, age, disability, predisposing genetic characteristics, domestic violence victim status, unemployment status, or any other legally protected basis. Women, racial and ethnic minorities, persons of minority sexual orientation or gender identity, individuals with disabilities, and veterans are encouraged to apply for vacant positions at all levels. -- Todd M. Gureckis Assoc. Professor, Psychology New York University 6 Washington Place, Rm 859 New York, NY, 10003 ph: (212) 998-3794 todd.gureckis at nyu.edu http://gureckislab.org/ From nian.zhang6 at gmail.com Tue Dec 6 14:05:55 2016 From: nian.zhang6 at gmail.com (Nian Ashlee Zhang) Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2016 14:05:55 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: Call for Papers - ISNN 2017 (Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan, June 21-23, 2017), Paper Submission: January 1, 2017 Message-ID: *Call for Papers* *The 14th International Symposium on Neural Networks (ISNN 2017), Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan, June 21-23, 2017 * https://conference.cs.cityu.edu.hk/isnn/ The 14th International Symposium on Neural Networks (ISNN 2017) will be held in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan during June 21-23, 2017, following the successes of previous events. Located in northern island of Hokkaido, Sapporo is the fourth largest Japanese city and a popular summer/winter tourist venue. ISNN 2017 aims to provide a high-level international forum for scientists, engineers, and educators to present the state of the art of neural network research and applications in related fields. The symposium will feature plenary speeches given by world renowned scholars, regular sessions with broad coverage, and special sessions focusing on popular topics. Authors are invited to submit full-length papers by the submission deadline through the online submission system. The submission of a paper implies that the paper is original and has not been submitted under review or is not copyright-protected elsewhere and will be presented by an author if accepted. All submitted papers will be refereed by experts in the field based on the criteria of originality, significance, quality, and clarity. Papers presented at ISNN 2017 will be published in the EI-indexed proceedings in the Springer LNCS series and selected good papers will be included in special issues of several SCI journals. *Important Dates* - Paper submission: January 1, 2017 - Notification of acceptance: February 1, 2017 - Camera-ready copy and author registration: March 1, 2017 - Conference: June 21-23, 2017 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sen.cheng at rub.de Tue Dec 6 07:49:05 2016 From: sen.cheng at rub.de (Sen Cheng) Date: Tue, 6 Dec 2016 13:49:05 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Research Position at the Institute for Neural Computation Message-ID: A full-time position as Research Assistant in integrative neuroscience and cognitive science is available immediately in the group of Prof. Sen Cheng at the Institute for Neural Computation, Ruhr University Bochum in Germany. The research will focus on robot-assisted modeling of spatial navigation paradigms in rodents. Robotic simulations, as well as, physical robots will be used to develop and evaluate the desired models. The position will be funded at the standard salary scale TV-L E13. It is initially limited to 1 year with the possibility of extension, depending on the availability of funding. Candidates should have an excellent degree in neuroscience, physics, mathematics, engineering, or a related field. Competence in mathematical modeling, and excellent programming skills (Python, C/C++, Matlab, OpenCV, Qt) are mandatory. Candidates are further required to have a strong background in at least one of the following fields: robotics, computational neuroscience, or cognitive modeling. Experience with interdisciplinary research in integrative neuroscience and cognitive science and with collaborative research would be a further asset. The working language at the Institute for Neural Computing is English. Further information is available at www.rub.de/cns. To apply, please send a statement of your research interests, academic transcripts, and a complete CV to sekretariat at ini.rub.de. Please, also request from at least two academic referees that they send letters of reference directly to the same email address. The closing date for the submission of applications is December 15th, 2016, but applications will be considered until the position is filled. The Ruhr University Bochum provides a dynamic research environment in neuroscience and cognitive science. The Institute for Neural Computation unifies various core competencies extending from experimental and theoretical neuroscience to machine learning and robotics. The Ruhr University Bochum is committed to equal opportunity. We strongly encourage applications from qualified women and persons with disabilities. --- Prof. Dr. Sen Cheng Ruhr-Universit?t Bochum Institut f?r Neuroinformatik Universit?tsstr. 150 44801 Bochum B?ro: NB 3/33 | +49-234- 32 27136 | FAX: +49-234- 32 07136 sen.cheng at rub.de | http://www.rub.de/cns -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Pavis at iit.it Wed Dec 7 09:28:57 2016 From: Pavis at iit.it (Pavis) Date: Wed, 7 Dec 2016 14:28:57 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoctoral position in Pattern Recognition, Machine Learning and Computer Vision for the analysis of neuroimaging, biomedical and biological data 73154 Message-ID: <0E09F354EB71FC40A4D51EE54D8A9C88777B99FD@IITMXWGE015.iit.local> Postdoctoral position in Pattern Recognition, Machine Learning and Computer Vision for the analysis of neuroimaging, biomedical and biological data The Pattern Analysis and Computer Vision department (PAVIS) at IIT (http://www.iit.it/pavis.html) is looking for a highly qualified candidate in the field of Computer Vision, Pattern Recognition, Machine Learning, and Image Analysis interested and possibly with some experience on Biomedical Data Analysis. PAVIS focuses on the analysis and understanding of multimodal data, like signals, images, videos and patterns in general, having a wide expertise on image and signal processing, computer vision, pattern recognition and machine learning. The attention is on the design of intelligent systems for real applications, especially related, but not limited, to surveillance & security and biomedical imaging. The main mission of PAVIS is to design and develop innovative computational frameworks for advanced image-based and video-based data analysis, characterized by the use of smart sensors and advanced imaging devices. PAVIS plays an active role in supporting other research units at IIT providing scientists in Neuroscience, Nanophysics and other IIT departments/centers with ad hoc solutions. For this reason, previous multidisciplinary experience is an added value which will be properly considered. The biomedical imaging team is involved in activities concerning: ? Biomedical image analysis; ? Analysis of multimodal neuroimaging data (functional and structural connectomics); ? Biological signal/image/video processing; ? Analysis of microscope optical imaging; ? Animal behavior analysis (classification and abstraction). The ideal candidate must be knowledgeable within one or more of the following subjects: probabilistic graphical models, topic models and Bayesian non-parametric, relational learning, deep learning, RBMs, neural networks and auto-encoders, sparse and dictionary learning, kernel methods and manifold learning, graph-based learning and spectral analysis. Candidates to this position have, therefore, a Ph.D. in computer vision, machine learning, pattern recognition or related areas, and research experience and qualification should follow the same lines. Evidence of top quality research on the above specified areas in the form of published papers in top conferences/journals and/or patents is mandatory. A keen interest in biomedical applications is of course necessary. Strong programming skill is required. Experience in the preparation and management of research proposals (EU, US, national) and a few years of postdoc experience, either in academia or industrial lab, will also be duly considered. The scientist is expected to publish his/her research results in leading international journals and conferences. She/he is also expected to contribute to the set-up of new project proposals, participate in funding activities, supervising PhD candidates and collaborate with scientists from different disciplines. The position is offered for a period of 2 years. Salary will be commensurate to qualification and experience and in line with international standard. Further details and informal enquires can be made by email to pavis at iit.it quoting PAVIS-PD 73154 as reference number in the subject. Please send you application to applications at iit.it, quoting PAVIS-PD 73154 as reference number, along with a curriculum listing all publications (possibly including pdf of your most representative publications), a research statement describing your previous research experience and outlining its relevance to the above topics and 2 references letters. This call will remain open and applications will be reviewed until the position is filled, but for full consideration please apply by January 31, 2017. In order to comply with the Italian law (art. 23 of Privacy Law of the Italian Legislative Decree n. 196/03), we have to kindly ask the candidate to give his/her consent to allow IIT to process his/her personal data. We inform you that the information you provide will be used solely for the purpose of assessing your professional profile to meet the requirements of Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia. Your data will be processed by Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, with headquarters in Genoa, Via Morego 30, acting as the Data Holder, using computer and paper based means, observing the rules on protection of personal data, including those relating to the security of data. Please also note that, pursuant to art.7 of Legislative Decree 196/2003, you may exercise your rights at any time as a party concerned by contacting the Data Manager. Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia is an Equal Opportunity Employer that actively seeks diversity in the workforce. From hava at cs.umass.edu Wed Dec 7 13:38:13 2016 From: hava at cs.umass.edu (Hava Siegelmann) Date: Wed, 07 Dec 2016 13:38:13 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: 2017 awards Message-ID: <58485715.8040403@cs.umass.edu> Dear Friends As the chair of the awards committee of the international neural networks society it is with great pleasure to announce our 2017 winners: Risto Miikkulainen is the Gabor award winner Henry Markram, is the Hebb award winner Congratulations! Hava -- Hava T. Siegelmann, Ph.D. Professor Director, BINDS Lab (Biologically Inspired Neural Dynamical Systems) Dept. of Computer Science Program of Neuroscience and Behavior University of Massachusetts Amherst Amherst, MA, 01003 Phone: 413-545-2744 Fax: 413-545-1249 LAB WEBSITE: http://binds.cs.umass.edu/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tomas.hromadka at gmail.com Thu Dec 8 17:12:55 2016 From: tomas.hromadka at gmail.com (Tomas Hromadka) Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2016 23:12:55 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: COSYNE 2017: Travel grants, registration, and hotels Message-ID: <5f5587cc-4c1c-7890-0935-a168e5c57bfc@gmail.com> ==================================================== Computational and Systems Neuroscience 2017 (Cosyne) MAIN MEETING 23 - 26 February 2017 Salt Lake City, Utah WORKSHOPS 27 - 28 February 2017 Snowbird, Utah www.cosyne.org ==================================================== REGISTRATION AND HOTELS Travel grants submission is currently open. Online registration is currently open. Hotel booking is currently open. Travel grant application deadlines Dec 31, 2016, 11.59PM PST (*Undergraduate* Travel Grant) Jan 14, 2017, 11.59PM PST (Other travel grants) Early registration deadline Jan 31, 2017, 11.45PM EST Hotel booking deadlines Jan 13, 2017, Last day for reduced hotel rates at workshops Feb 01, 2017, Last day for reduced hotel rates at main meeting For more detailed information on Cosyne, please visit www.cosyne.org. TRAVEL GRANTS Applications are now open for travel grants to attend the conference. Each awardee will receive at least $500 to help offset the costs of travel, registration, and accommodations. Larger grants may be available to those traveling from outside North America. Special consideration is given to scientists who have not previously attended the meeting, under-represented minorities, students who are attending the meeting together with a mentor, undergraduate students, and authors of submitted Cosyne abstracts. We currently offer four travel grant programs for New Attendees, Presenters, Mentors, and Undergraduates. For details on applying, see cosyne.org, section Travel grants. THE MEETING The annual Cosyne meeting provides an inclusive forum for the exchange of empirical and theoretical approaches to problems in systems neuroscience, in order to understand how neural systems function. The MAIN MEETING is single-track. A set of invited talks are selected by the Executive Committee, and additional talks and posters are selected by the Program Committee, based on submitted abstracts. The WORKSHOPS feature in-depth discussion of current topics of interest, in a small group setting. For details on workshop proposals please visit cosyne.org, section Workshops. Cosyne topics include but are not limited to: neural coding, natural scene statistics, dendritic computation, neural basis of persistent activity, nonlinear receptive field mapping, representations of time and sequence, reward systems, decision-making, synaptic plasticity, map formation and plasticity, population coding, attention, and computation with spiking networks. We would like to foster increased participation from experimental groups as well as computational ones. Please circulate widely and encourage your students and postdocs to attend. CONFIRMED SPEAKERS Yoshua Bengio (Montreal) Brent Doiron (Pittsburgh) Catherine Dulac (Harvard) Greg Gage (Backyard Brains) Surya Ganguli (Stanford) Maria Geffen (Penn) Gero Miesenbock (Oxford) Liz Phelps (NYU) Jonathan Pillow (Princeton) Vanessa Ruta (Rockefeller) Daphna Shohamy (Columbia) Kay Tye (MIT) Nao Uchida (Harvard) ORGANIZING COMMITTEE: General Chairs: Megan Carey (Champalimaud) and Emilio Salinas (Wake Forest) Program Chairs: Ilana Witten (Princeton) and Eric Shea-Brown (U Washington) Workshop Chairs: Laura Busse (LMU, Munich) and Alfonso Renart (Champalimaud) Undergraduate Travel Chairs: Angela Langdon (Princeton) and Robert Wilson (U Arizona) Publicity Chair: Il Memming Park (Stony Brook) EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE: Anne Churchland (CSHL) Zachary Mainen (Champalimaud) Alexandre Pouget (U Geneva) Anthony Zador (CSHL) CONTACT cosyne.meeting [at] gmail.com COSYNE MAILING LISTS Please consider adding yourself to Cosyne mailing lists (groups) to receive email updates with various Cosyne-related information and join in helpful discussions. See Cosyne.org -> Mailing lists for details. From kagan.tumer at oregonstate.edu Thu Dec 8 13:29:43 2016 From: kagan.tumer at oregonstate.edu (Kagan Tumer) Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2016 10:29:43 -0800 Subject: Connectionists: Robotics Faculty Positions at Oregon State University Message-ID: <5849A697.6080900@oregonstate.edu> Oregon State University (OSU) Robotics program invites applications for one or more full-time tenure-track and/or tenured faculty positions to begin Fall 2017. All areas relating to robotics will be considered. As one of the nation?s leading Robotics programs, OSU seeks top-quality candidates who will help us continue to grow. Candidates should hold a Ph.D. in robotics, mechanical engineering, electrical and computer engineering, computer science, or other relevant discipline by the start date of employment, have a demonstrated record of scholarship, and have experience working with real robots. The successful candidates will have office and laboratory space physically located with the existing Robotics group, and will have an administrative home most appropriate to their area of expertise within the College of Engineering?s School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) or School of Mechanical, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering (MIME). As a Land/Sea/Air/Space/Sun Grant institution, with strong ties to oceanography and the NOAA fleet, as well as the host of an FAA UAV test site, OSU offers many opportunities to collaborate across disciplines and utilize Robotics as an enabling technology. Appointment is anticipated at the Assistant Professor rank, but candidates with exceptional qualifications may be considered for appointment at the rank of Associate Professor or Professor. Applicants should demonstrate a strong commitment and capacity to initiate new funded research as well as to expand, complement, and collaborate with existing research programs within and outside of the OSU College of Engineering. Further, applicants should demonstrate a strong commitment to graduate and undergraduate teaching, including developing new courses related to their research expertise. Oregon State is located in Corvallis, at the heart of Oregon?s Willamette Valley. Surrounded by forests and mountains, Corvallis combines the amenities of a college town with ample opportunity for outdoor recreation and fresh local food. Portland, the Cascade mountain range, and the Oregon Coast are all within easy reach. Oregon State University has a strong institutional commitment to diversity and multiculturalism, and provides a welcoming atmosphere with unique professional opportunities for leaders from underrepresented groups. OSU seeks diversity as a source of enrichment for our university community. We are an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity employer, and particularly encourage applications from members of historically underrepresented racial/ethnic groups, women, individuals with disabilities, veterans, LGBTQ community members, and others who share our vision of an inclusive community. The College of Engineering ranks high nationally in terms of the percentage of women faculty, and the university supports dual-career applications. Apply online at http://jobs.oregonstate.edu/postings/34121 (posting: P00825UF) with the following documents: A letter of interest; vita; a two-page statement of research interests; a one-page statement of teaching interests; a one-page statement on past efforts and future plans to promote equity and inclusion; and names and contact information for at least three references. To be assured full consideration, applications should be received by December 15, 2016. From josic at math.uh.edu Thu Dec 8 23:44:00 2016 From: josic at math.uh.edu (Kresimir Josic) Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2016 22:44:00 -0600 Subject: Connectionists: 2017 SIAM Workshop on Network Science (13-14 July 2017) Message-ID: The SIAM Workshop on Network Science will take place in Pittsburgh, PA, USA on July 13 & 14, 2017, and it is co-located with the SIAM Annual Meeting. http://www.siam.org/meetings/ns17/ Abstract submissions (due 27 February) are now open, and the deadline for early-career researchers to apply for travel support is 20 January. Invited speakers will be announced shortly. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From chriskanan at gmail.com Thu Dec 8 17:42:46 2016 From: chriskanan at gmail.com (Christopher Kanan) Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2016 17:42:46 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: Assistant Professor Opening in Computer Vision or Computational Imaging/Photography at RIT Message-ID: *RIT Seeks Assistant Professor of Computer Vision ? Computational Imaging/Photography* *DESCRIPTION:* The Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science at the Rochester Institute of Technology invites candidates to apply for a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Imagining Science position. We are seeking candidates with research expertise in the field of computer vision, machine vision, or computational imaging/photography. Preference will be given to candidates whose research programs complement or extend the existing and well-established expertise within the Center including multi-view geometry, ancient document restoration, astronomical and planetary imaging, biomedical imaging and visualization, computational imaging, micro- and nano-scale imaging, remote sensing, human vision, machine learning, scene understanding, and end-to-end hardware/software imaging systems. The successful candidate will be expected to advise B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. students, teach undergraduate and graduate level courses in the core imaging science curriculum, offer elective courses in the candidate?s area of research, and develop an externally funded research program. More information on the activities of the Center can be found at http://www.cis.rit.edu. *REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS:* ? A recently earned doctoral degree (Ph.D. or international equivalent) by the hire date (expected to be August 15, 2017) ? A record of refereed scholarly publication in computer vision, machine vision, or computational imaging/photography ? The ability to teach CIS core courses related to image processing, computer vision or scientific computing ? The ability to teach elective courses in their field of expertise at the undergraduate and graduate levels ? Potential to obtain external research funding ? Ability to communicate effectively ? Ability to contribute in meaningful ways to the college?s continuing commitment to cultural diversity, pluralism, and individual differences HOW TO APPLY: Apply online at http://apptrkr.com/918841 Submit your curriculum vitae and a cover letter addressing the required qualifications, your research and teaching interests, the names and email addresses for three references, and a contribution to diversity statement. Contact the search committee with questions on the position at salvaggio at cis.rit.edu. Review of applications will begin immediately and continue until a suitable candidate is found. Application materials will be accepted through 1/17/2017. RIT does not discriminate. RIT promotes and values diversity, pluralism and inclusion in the work place. RIT provides equal opportunity to all qualified individuals and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, creed, age, marital status, sex, gender, religion, sexual orientations, gender identity, gender expression, national origin, veteran status or disability in its hiring, admissions, educational programs and activities. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From n.lepora at bristol.ac.uk Fri Dec 9 03:29:32 2016 From: n.lepora at bristol.ac.uk (Nathan Lepora) Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2016 08:29:32 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: [meetings] Living Machines VI: First Call for Papers, Satellite Events and Sponsors Message-ID: First Call for Papers, Satellite Events and Sponsors Living Machines VI: The 6th International Conference on Biomimetic and Biohybrid Systems 25 ? 28 July 2017 http://livingmachinesconference.eu/ To be hosted at Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA Accepted papers will be published in Springer Lecturer Notes in Artificial Intelligence Submission deadline: March 10th, 2017 ______________________________________________________________ ABOUT LIVING MACHINES 2017 The development of future real-world technologies will depend strongly on our understanding and harnessing of the principles underlying living systems and the flow of communication signals between living and artificial systems. Biomimetics is the development of novel technologies through the distillation of principles from the study of biological systems. The investigation of biomimetic systems can serve two complementary goals. First, a suitably designed and configured biomimetic artefact can be used to test theories about the natural system of interest. Second, biomimetic technologies can provide useful, elegant and efficient solutions to unsolved challenges in science and engineering. Biohybrid systems are formed by combining at least one biological component?an existing living system?and at least one artificial, newly-engineered component. By passing information in one or both directions, such a system forms a new hybrid bio-artificial entity. The theme of the conference also encompasses biomimetic methods for manufacture, repair and recycling inspired by natural processes such as reproduction, digestion, morphogenesis and metamorphosis. The following are some examples of ?Living Machines? as featured at past conferences: ? Biomimetic robots and their component technologies (sensors, actuators, processors) that can intelligently interact with their environments. ? Biomimetic computers?neuromimetic emulations of the physiological basis for intelligent behaviour. ? Active biomimetic materials and structures that self-organize and self-repair. ? Nature-inspired designs and manufacturing processes. ? Biohybrid brain-machine interfaces and neural implants. ? Artificial organs and body-parts including sensory organ-chip hybrids and intelligent prostheses. ? Organism-level biohybrids such as robot-animal or robot-human systems. ACTIVITIES The main conference will take the form of a three-day single-track oral and poster presentation programme, 26th to 28th July 2017, hosted at Stanford University, California, USA. The conference programme will include five plenary lectures from leading international researchers in biomimetic and biohybrid systems, and the demonstrations of state-of-the-art living machine technologies. The full conference will be preceded by up to two days of Satellite Events hosted at Stanford University. SUBMITTING TO LIVING MACHINES 2017 We invite both full papers and extended abstracts in areas related to the conference themes. All contributions will be refereed and accepted papers will appear in the Living Machines Proceedings, published in the Springer-Verlag Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence. Full papers (minimum 8 pages, up to 12 pages) are invited from researchers at any stage in their career and should present significant findings and advances in biomimetic or biohybrid research. More preliminary work is better suited for short paper submission (minimum 4 pages, with a maximum of ten references and no more than three self-citations). Full papers will be accepted for either oral presentation (single track) or poster presentation with a short podium preview. Extended abstracts will be accepted for poster presentation only. Authors of the best full papers will be invited to submitted extended versions of their paper for publication in a special issue of the Taylor & Francis journal Connection Science. Satellite events Active researchers in biomimetic and biohybrid systems are invited to propose topics for full or half-day tutorials, symposia or workshops on related themes to be held on the 25th July at Stanford University. Attendance at satellite events will attract a small fee intended to cover the costs of the meeting. There is flexibility about the content, organisation, and budgeting for these events. Please contact us if you are interested in organising a satellite event! EXPECTED DEADLINES March 10th, 2017 Paper submission deadline April 28th, 2017 Notification of acceptance May 15th, 2017 Camera ready copy July 25th - 28th 2017 Conference SPONSORSHIP Organisations wishing to sponsor the conference in any way and gain the corresponding benefits by promoting themselves and their products through conference publications, conference events, and conference publicity are encouraged to contact the organisers to discuss the terms of sponsorship and necessary arrangements. We offer a number of attractive options to potential sponsors: http://livingmachinesconference.eu/about/ VENUE Living Machines 2017 will be hosted at Stanford University a world leading research University that this year celebrates its 125th anniversary. Stanford is located in California's Bay Area, one of the most intellectually dynamic and culturally diverse areas of the US. Organising Committee: Mark Cutkosky, Stanford University (Local Organizing Chair) Paul Verschure, Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Co-Chair) Tony Prescott, University of Sheffield (Co-chair) Michael Mangan, University of Lincoln (Programme Chair) Marc Desmulliez, Heriott Watt University, Scotland (Steering Committee) Anna Mura, Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Communications) Nathan Lepora, University of Bristol (Communications) -- Dr N Lepora Dept of Engineering Maths Phone: +44 (0) 117 331 5169 Merchant Venturers Building Fax: +44 (0) 117 331 5606 University of Bristol BS8 1UB Website: http://www.lepora.com Senior Lecturer in Engineering Mathematics http://www.bristol.ac.uk/engineering/people/nathan-f-lepora Program Director (UoB) for the MSc in Robotics http://www.bristol.ac.uk/engineering/interdisciplinary/robotics/ BRL Theme Leader in Tactile Robotics http://www.brl.ac.uk/research/researchthemes/tactilerobotics.aspx From mvanross at inf.ed.ac.uk Fri Dec 9 06:09:34 2016 From: mvanross at inf.ed.ac.uk (Mark van Rossum) Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2016 11:09:34 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Assistant/Associate Professor in Data Science for Life Sciences, Edinburgh, CORRECT LINK Message-ID: <5c8491d8-f494-fbf8-5f56-dea2d7e1f101@inf.ed.ac.uk> Applications are invited for a Lecturer, Senior Lecturer or Reader in Data Science for the Life Sciences to join the School of Informatics, at the University of Edinburgh. We seek candidates that combine research in the Life Sciences with innovative computational data analysis approaches. Candidates are particularly sought with research interests in areas complementing, or reinforcing, existing strengths in the Institute for Adaptive and Neural Computation, including Computational Biology, Bioinformatics, and Computational Neuroscience. The University of Edinburgh hosts the largest academic informatics research faculty in Europe. We also benefit from extensive links to world leading biological, biomedical and clinical research institutes and companies both locally and internationally. https://www.vacancies.ed.ac.uk/pls/corehrrecruit/erq_jobspec_version_4.jobspec?p_id=038312 Mark van Rossum -- The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336. From cgf at isep.ipp.pt Sat Dec 10 14:46:14 2016 From: cgf at isep.ipp.pt (Carlos Ferreira) Date: Sat, 10 Dec 2016 19:46:14 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: CFP: Workshop on Data Mining for Oil & Gas Message-ID: <0a87f5b4-9a1b-c9d0-584b-57464e5dffe5@isep.ipp.pt> Workshop on Data Mining for Oil & Gas The Westin Galeria Houston, Texas, USA http://dm4og.inesctec.pt **Call for Papers**: The process of exploring and exploiting Oil and Gas (O&G) generates a lot of data that can bring more efficiency to the industry. Although there are several examples of research papers on data mining and soft computing applications in the O&G related sciences, the opportunities for using data mining techniques in the "digital oil-field" remain largely unexplored or uncharted. The significant challenges posed by this complex and economically vital field justify a meeting of data scientists that are willing to share their experience and knowledge. Hosted at SIAM?s International Conference on Data Mining (SDM 2017), this workshop aims at bringing together researchers and practitioners from data science, data mining, forecasting, geophysics, petrochemistry, marine and petroleum geology, applied mathematics, and other disciplines, to explore the utilization of data mining techniques to develop intelligent solutions for O&G related modeling and optimization problems. The **topics of interest** include, but are not limited to: * the accurate positioning of structures (salt and overthrust), * the characterization of laminated sands and shales, * prediction and evaluation of pressure in reservoirs, * fault detection and classification, * facies recognition, * exploration in difficult areas, * accurate depth imaging, * fluid/permeability prediction, * identification and classification of fractures, * uncertainty quantification, * environmental issues. All submitted papers will go through a rigorous double-blind peer review process, and the workshop proceedings will be published in electronic format, with CEUR-WS (indexed by DBLP, as well as Scopus). Submitted papers should have no more than 15 pages, including references. Only original papers, i.e., that have not been published in an earlier workshop or conference, will be accepted. In order to produce the PDF, we provide a LaTex template, and an example with author guidelines, at goo.gl/nom2KL. The manuscripts must be submitted through the DM4OG EasyChair submissions site at https://goo.gl/1kUqXr. **Important Dates** Submission deadline: December 23, 2016 Author Notification: January 25, 2017 SDM Conference: April 27-29, 2017 SDM 2017 homepage: http://www.siam.org/meetings/sdm17/ **Organizing Committee** Al?pio Jorge, University of Porto, Portugal German Larrazabal, Repsol USA, Houston, Texas, USA Pablo Guillen, University of Houston, Texas, USA Rui L. Lopes, INESC TEC, Porto, Portugal **** Carlos Ferreira ISEP | Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto Rua Dr. Ant?nio Bernardino de Almeida, 431 4249-015 Porto - PORTUGAL tel. +351 228 340 500 | fax +351 228 321 159 mail at isep.ipp.pt | www.isep.ipp.pt From yang at maebashi-it.org Sun Dec 11 10:20:41 2016 From: yang at maebashi-it.org (Yang) Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 00:20:41 +0900 Subject: Connectionists: CFP - Brain Informatics 2017 Message-ID: <350AC7AB0E344ED3A7B5F529EADE0008@yangPC> [Apologies if you receive this more than once] CALL FOR PAPERS The 2017 International Conference on Brain Informatics (BI'17) Informatics Perspective of Investigation on the Brain and Mind November 16-18, 2017, Beijing, China Homepage: http://bii.ia.ac.cn/bi-2017/ Mirror: http://wi-consortium.org/conferences/bi-2017/ (FULL PAPER SUBMISSION DEADLINE: April 2, 2017) Brain Informatics (BI) conference series provides a premier forum to bring together researchers and practitioners in the fields of neuroscience, cognitive science, computer science, data science, artificial intelligence, information communication technologies, and neuroimaging technologies. BI'17 addresses the computational, cognitive, physiological, biological, physical, ecological and social perspectives of brain informatics, as well as topics relating to mental health and well-being. It also welcomes emerging information technologies, including but not limited to Internet/Web of Things (IoT/WoT), cloud computing, big data analytics and interactive knowledge discovery related to brain research. BI'17 also encourages submissions that explore how advanced computing technologies are applied to and make a difference in various large-scale brain studies and their applications. BI'17 welcomes paper submissions (full paper and abstract submissions). Both research and application papers are solicited. All submitted papers will be reviewed on the basis of technical quality, relevance, significance and clarity. Accepted full papers will be included in the proceedings by Springer LNCS/LNAI. Workshop, Special-Session and Tutorial proposals, and Industry/Demo-Track papers are also welcome. The organizers of Workshops and Special-Sessions are invited to prepare a book proposal based on the topics of the workshop/special session for possible book publication in the Springer-Nature Brain Informatics & Health book series. *** Topics and Areas *** Track 1: Cognitive and Computational Foundations of Brain Science Track 2: Investigations of Human Information Processing Systems Track 3: Brain Big Data Analytics, Curation and Management Track 4: Informatics Paradigms for Brain and Mental Health Track 5: Brain-Inspired Intelligence and Computing IMPORTANT DATES: ================ March 10, 2017: Submission for workshop/special-session proposals March 30, 2017: Notification of workshop/special-session proposal acceptance April 2, 2017: Submission deadline for full papers May 20, 2017: Submission deadline for workshop/special-session papers June 10, 2017: Notification of full paper acceptance June 20, 2017: Notification of workshop/special-session paper acceptance June 20, 2017: Submission deadline for abstracts July 10, 2017: Notification of abstract acceptance November 16, 2017: Tutorials, workshops and special-sessions November 17-18, 2017: Main conference PAPER SUBMISSIONS & PUBLICATIONS: ================================= TYPE-I (Full Paper Submissions; Submission Deadline: April 2, 2017): Papers need to have up to 10 pages in LNCS format: http://www.springer.com/computer/lncs?SGWID=0-164-6-793341-0 All full length papers accepted (and all special sessions' full length papers) will be published by Springer as a volume of the series of LNCS/LNAI. TYPE-II (Abstract Submissions; Submission Deadline: June 20, 2017): Abstracts have a word limit of 500 words. Experimental research is particularly welcome. Accepted abstract submissions will be included in the conference program, and will be published as a single, collective proceedings volume. Title: Include in the title of the abstract all words critical for a subject index. Write your title in sentence case (first letter is capitalized; remaining letters are lower case). Do not bold or italicize your full title. Author: List all authors who contributed to the work discussed in the abstract. The presenting author must be listed in the first author slot of the list. Be prepared to submit contact information as well as conflict of interest information for each author listed. Abstract: Enter the body of the abstract and attach any applicable graphic files or tables here. Do not re-enter the title, author, support, or other information that is collected in other steps of the submission form. Presentation Preference: Authors may select from three presentation formats when submitting an abstract: "poster only", "talk preferred" or "no preference." The "talk preferred" selection indicates that you would like to give a talk, but will accept a poster format if necessary. Marking "poster only" indicates that you would not like to be considered for an oral-presentation session. Selecting "no preference" indicates the author's willingness to be placed in the best format for the program. Each paper or abstract requires one sponsoring attendee (i.e. someone who registered and is attending the conference). A single attendee can not sponsor more than two abstracts or papers. Oral presentations will be selected from both full length papers and abstracts. *** Post-Conference Journal Publication *** The Brain Informatics conferences have the formal ties with Brain Informatics journal (Springer-Nature, http://www.springer.com/40708). Accepted papers from the conference, including their Best Paper Award papers, will be expended and revised for possible inclusion in the Brain Informatics journal each year. It is fully sponsored and no any article-processing fee charged for authors of Brain Informatics conference. *** Awards *** Best Paper awards will be conferred at the conference on the authors of (1) the best research paper and (2) the best student paper. ORGANIZERS ========== General Chairs Bo Xu (Chinese Academy of Sciences, China) Hanchuan Peng (Allen Institute for Brain Sciences, USA) Qingming Luo (Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China) Program Committee Chairs Yi Zeng (Chinese Academy of Sciences, China) Yong He (Beijing Normal University, China) Jeanette Kotaleski (Karolinska Institute, Sweden) Maryann Martone (University of California, San Diego, USA) Organizing Chairs Ning Zhong (Maebashi Institute of Technology, Japan, and Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Future Internet Technology, Beijing University of Technology, China Jianzhou Yan (Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Future Internet Technology, Beijing University of Technology, China) Shengfu Lu (Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Future Internet Technology, Beijing University of Technology, China) Workshop/Special-Session Chairs An'an Li (Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China) Sen Song (Tsinghua University, China) Tutorial Chair Wenming Zheng (South East University, China) Publicity Chairs Tielin Zhang (Chinese Academy of Sciences, China) Shouyi Wang (University of Texas at Arlington, USA) Yang Yang (Maebashi Institute of Technology, Japan, and Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Future Internet Technology, Beijing University of Technology, China) Steering Committee Chairs Ning Zhong (Maebashi Institute of Technology, Japan) Hanchuan Peng (Allen Institute for Brain Science, USA) *** Contact Information *** tielin.zhang at ia.ac.cn shouyiw at uta.edu yang at maebashi-it.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From J.Verhoef at donders.ru.nl Mon Dec 12 06:38:07 2016 From: J.Verhoef at donders.ru.nl (Verhoef, J.P. (Julia)) Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 11:38:07 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Vacancy: Three Positions in the Dutch Research Consortium "Language in Interaction". Message-ID: <11E9E0B371DBAE4EB859A9CC30606A04AD1CCC@exprd04.hosting.ru.nl> Three Positions in the Dutch Research Consortium 'Language in Interaction' (1,0 fte) [Logo NWO][Logo]Dutch Research Consortium 'Language in Interaction' Vacancy number: 30.10.16 Application deadline: Jan 29, 2017, 23:59 CET Responsibilities We are looking for highly motivated candidates to enrich a unique consortium of researchers that aims to unravel the neurocognitive mechanisms of language at multiple levels. The goal is to understand both the universality and the variability of the human language faculty from genes to behaviour. Currently, our consortium advertises 1 Postdoc and 2 Research Assistant positions. These positions provide the opportunity for conducting world-class research as a member of an interdisciplinary team. Each position has its own requirements and profile. Click here for more information on the advertised positions. Work environment The Netherlands has an outstanding track record in the language sciences. The research consortium 'Language in Interaction', sponsored by a large grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific research (NWO), brings together many of the excellent research groups in the Netherlands with a research programme on the foundations of language. In addition to excellence in the domain of language and related relevant fields of cognition, our consortium provides state-of-the-art research facilities and a research team with ample experience in the complex research methods that will be invoked to address the scientific questions at the highest level of methodological sophistication. These include methods from genetics, neuroimaging, computational modelling, and patient-related research. This consortium realizes both quality and critical mass for studying human language at a scale not easily found anywhere else. We have identified five Big Questions (BQ) that are central to our understanding of the human language faculty. These questions are interrelated at multiple levels. Teams of researchers will collaborate to collectively address these key questions of our field. Our five Big Questions are: BQ1: The nature of the mental lexicon: How to bridge neurobiology and psycholinguistic theory by computational modelling? BQ2: What are the characteristics and consequences of internal brain organization for language? BQ3: Creating a shared cognitive space: How is language grounded in and shaped by communicative settings of interacting people? BQ4: Variability in language processing and in language learning: Why does the ability to learn language change with age? How can we characterise and map individual language skills in relation to the population distribution? BQ5: How are other cognitive systems shaped by the presence of a language system in humans? Successful candidates will be appointed at one of the consortium's home institutions, depending on the position applied for. All successful candidates will become members of our Big Question teams. The research is conducted in an international setting at all participating institutions. English is the lingua franca. What we expect from you Each position has its own requirements and profile. Detailed information on: www.languageininteraction.nl/bqpositions.html General requirements for all positions are: ? a degree in one of the fields indicated for the positions; ? strong motivation; ? excellent proficiency in written and spoken English. What we have to offer ? employment: 1,0 fte; ? you will be appointed at one of the consortium's home institutions, depending on the position applied for; ? Terms of employment depend on the embedding institution. ? Dutch universities and the institute involved have a number of regulations in place that enable employees to create a good work-life balance. Other Information The institute involved is an equal opportunity employer, committed to building a culturally diverse intellectual community, and as such encourages applications from women and minorities. Would you like to know more? Further information on: the Language in Interaction Consortium. Further information on: the different positions, including terms of employment and contacts Are you interested? You should upload your application (attn. of Prof. dr. P. Hagoort) using the button 'Apply'. Your application should include (and be limited to) the following attachments: ? a cover letter quoting at the top the number (BQ1N or BQ4RA) of the position you apply for, ? your curriculum vitae, including a list of publications and the names of at least two persons who can provide references. Please apply before Jan 29, 2017, 23:59 CET. For more information on your application: +31 24 3611173. Big Question 1 Scientific summary The big question this project addresses is how to use computational modeling to link levels of description, from neurons to cognition and behavior, in understanding the language system. We focus on the mental lexicon and aim to characterize its structure in a way that is precise and meaningful in neurobiological and (psycho)linguistic terms. Our overarching goal is to devise causal/explanatory models of the mental lexicon that can explain neural and behavioral data. This will significantly deepen our understanding of the mental lexicon, lexical access, and lexical acquisition. Postdoc Position - BQ1N Neurobiologically realistic models of the mental lexicon Content description You will participate in a team effort to understand the computational neurobiology underlying language by means of recurrent networks of spiking neurons (RNN) for sentence processing. The goal is to develop an RNN model of the long-term storage and retrieval of lexical items and their associated structural and semantic properties (Mental Lexicon), encoded into high-dimensional feature vectors. Core objectives are to understand the nature of these lexical representations, how they are linked to relevant retrieval cues, and how this system is acquired based on local, unsupervised, neurobiological plasticity principles (e.g., spike-timing dependent plasticity, homeostatic plasticity, synaptic consolidation). This memory network will interface with a network for online sentence comprehension (Unification) that is currently being developed in the Neurobiology of Language Department (MPI). In this combined architecture it will be investigated to what extent structured word representations delivered by the mental lexicon are suitable for incremental, combinatorial processing and what-conversely-the influence of sentence context is on lexical retrieval. Model building will be supplemented by the development of analytic techniques to measure memory capacity and dynamic stability, and methods to discover hidden representational structure in neuronal assemblies. Requirements You should have ? A PhD degree (or equivalent) on the computational modeling of language processing/acquisition with a background in mathematics, physics, computer science, or other relevant fields of study. ? A strong background in psycholinguistics as well as computational neuroscience is required. This includes detailed knowledge of neuronal dynamics, synaptic plasticity, and neurobiological principles for learning. ? Expertise on mathematical models of neural networks, dynamical systems, and the analysis of neuronal activity is highly valued. ? Extensive experience in scientific computing, including numerical methods, large-scale simulations, and data-science approaches. Programming experience especially in languages such as Matlab and Python is required, knowledge of simulation tools like NEST is desirable. ? Experience with concepts and methods for statistical analysis, and with state-of-the-art techniques for data visualization. ? An active interest in brain physiology, memory research, and computability theory. ? Affinity with cognitive neuroscience, machine learning, and fundamental issues in theoretical linguistics is desirable. ? Experience with designing and supervising PhD projects and have a proven ability to work in an interdisciplinary team, with strong communication skills in an international work environment. ? The ability to work independently, organize and lead group meetings, compose research reports regularly, and present results to a wide scientific audience. ? Fluency in English, spoken and written, is a must. Knowledge of Dutch is desirable but not mandatory. Embedding and Terms of employment This position will be held at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen. * Employment: 1,0 fte; ? Starting salary will be based on Tarifvertrag im ?ffentlichen Dienst E13 Stufe 1 (TV?D Bund). Final scaling dependant on experience; ? In addition to the salary: an 8% holiday allowance ? The Max Planck Institute involved has a number of regulations that make it possible for employees to create a good work-life balance. Contact information Dr. Karl Magnus Petersson (Karl-Magnus.Petersson at mpi.nl) and Prof. Peter Hagoort (Peter.Hagoort at mpi.nl) Big Question 4 Scientific summary We aim to characterize variation in language processing and learning skills and to determine how these variations relate to variations in the underlying biology of individual participants. The project has two strands: Strand A focuses on language processing skills in young adults, and Strand B on language learning skills in children and adults. Strand A will develop a comprehensive battery of language tasks targeting sound, meaning, and grammatical processing of words and longer utterances during speaking and listening. In addition, tasks will be selected or developed assessing general cognitive skills that are likely to affect performance in language tasks. Strand B uses variability in learning ability to investigate why second-language (L2) acquisition can become harder in adulthood. Two Research Assistant Positions - BQ4RA Content Description You will work primarily in Strand A of the project. You will be involved in the development of the tests items (e.g., generation of stimuli, adaptation of English tests for use in Dutch, preparing the presentation of the items in existing software packages), data analysis and archiving. Your main duties will, however, be to schedule and test participants in the lab in Nijmegen and in schools in various locations in the Netherlands. Requirements You should minimally have a BA degree (or equivalent) in Psychology, (Special) Education , or another relevant field of study. You must have native or near native knowledge of Dutch and good knowledge of English. Good IT skills would be highly valued. Most importantly, you should have good communicative and organizational skills and feel comfortable interacting with young persons, individually and in groups. Some experience in teaching, therapy, or tutoring would be useful. Applications from excellent candidates with a less than ideal profile will be equally considered. Embedding These positions will be held at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen. * Employment: 1,0 fte; * Starting salary will be based on Tarifvertrag im ?ffentlichen Dienst E9b Stufe 1 (TV?D Bund); ? In addition to the salary: an 8% holiday allowance; ? The Max Planck Institute involved has a number of regulations that make it possible for employees to create a good work-life balance. Contact information Prof. Antje S. Meyer (antje.meyer at mpi.nl) and Prof. James McQueen (j.mcqueen at donders.ru.nl) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 2461 bytes Desc: image001.jpg URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 40202 bytes Desc: image002.jpg URL: From m.plumbley at surrey.ac.uk Mon Dec 12 12:45:56 2016 From: m.plumbley at surrey.ac.uk (m.plumbley at surrey.ac.uk) Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 17:45:56 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: SPARS 2017 CfP deadline extended to Tue Jan 3, 2017 Message-ID: Dear Connectionists, Following several requests, the SPARS 2017 deadline has been extended over the holiday period to ** Tuesday 3 January 2017 **. The new deadline is strict: no further extension will be possible. Apologies for cross-posting. Best wishes, Mark Plumbley ============================================================================== ------------------------------------------ SPARS 2017 Signal Processing with Adaptive Sparse Structured Representations Lisbon, Portugal - June 5-8, 2017 ** Submission deadline (EXTENDED): January 3, 2017 ** http://spars2017.lx.it.pt/ ------------------------------------------ CALL FOR PAPERS The Signal Processing with Adaptive Sparse Structured Representations (SPARS) workshop aims to bring together people from statistics, engineering, mathematics, and computer science, fostering the exchange and dissemination of new ideas and results, both applied and theoretical, on the general area of sparsity-related techniques and computational methods, for high dimensional data analysis, signal processing, and related applications. Contributions (talks and demos) are solicited as one-page abstracts, which may extend to a second page in order to include figures, tables and references. Talks should present recent and novel research results. We welcome abstract submissions for technological demonstrations of the mathematical topics within our scope. Topics of interest include (but are not limited to): * Sparse coding and representations, and dictionary learning * Sparse and low-rank approximation algorithms * Compressive sensing and learning * Dimensionality reduction and feature extraction * Sparsity in approximation theory, information theory, and statistics * Low-complexity/low-dimensional regularization * Statistical/Bayesian models and algorithms for sparsity * Sparse network theory and analysis * Sparsity and low-rank regularization * Applications PLENARY SPEAKERS: * Yoram Bresler, University of Illinois, USA * Volkan Cevher, ?cole Polytechnique F?d?rale de Lausanne, Switzerland * Jalal Fadili, ?cole Nationale Sup?rieure d'Ing?nieurs de Caen, France * Anders Hansen, University of Cambridge, UK * Gitta Kutyniok, Technische Universit?t Berlin, Germany * Philip Schniter, Ohio State University, USA * Eero Simoncelli, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, NYU, USA * Rebecca Willett, University of Wisconsin, USA VENUE: SPARS 2017 will be held at Instituto Superior T?cnico (IST), the engineering school of the University of Lisbon, Portugal. IMPORTANT DATES: ** Submission deadline (EXTENDED): January 3, 2017 ** * Notification of acceptance: March 27, 2017 * Summer School: May 31-June 2, 2017 (tbc) * Workshop: June 5-8, 2017 CHAIRS: Mario A. T. Figueiredo, Instituto Superior T?cnico Mark Plumbley, University of Surrey FURTHER INFORMATION: http://spars2017.lx.it.pt/ ============================================================================== -- Prof Mark D Plumbley Professor of Signal Processing Centre for Vision, Speech and Signal Processing (CVSSP) University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, GU2 7XH, UK Email: m.plumbley at surrey.ac.uk From A.Visser at uva.nl Mon Dec 12 12:34:01 2016 From: A.Visser at uva.nl (Visser, Arnoud) Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 17:34:01 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: [job] Machine Learning lecturer: University of Amsterdam Message-ID: <0963669047ECDE4B9EF137DF26A5E25049F71A7E@MBX04.uva.nl> Dear all, A temporary position as lecturer in Machine Learning is available at the University of Amsterdam. The main task is to lecture several Machine Learning courses at undergraduate (BSc) and graduate {MSc ) level. Next to teaching the courses, an important part of the job is orchestrating all of the Machine Learning courses that we provide in no less than six educational programs. The focus will be on the undergraduate level. We like to invites candidates with good teaching qualities to apply for a position as teacher in Machine Learning. For more details: http://www.uva.nl/en/about-the-uva/working-at-the-uva/vacancies/item/16-552-teacher-machine-learning.html?m= Regards, Arnoud Visser program director of the bachelor Artificial Intelligence University of Amsterdam https://staff.fnwi.uva.nl/a.visser/ From sascha.griffiths at googlemail.com Mon Dec 12 17:44:02 2016 From: sascha.griffiths at googlemail.com (Sascha S. Griffiths) Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 23:44:02 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Deadline Extended: CFP - Special Issue on "Symbol Emergence and Developmental Systems: Social Symbol Grounding and Embodied Cognition in Humans and Robots" - IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems (TCDS) Message-ID: <34b6a678-6e46-e460-b657-3ecaee2af491@gmail.com> ************************************************ ***Apologies for multiple postings of this announcement*** ***The deadline for manuscript submission has been extended to 20th, February 2017.*** ************************************************ IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems (TCDS) Special Issue on "Symbol Emergence and Developmental Systems: Social Symbol Grounding and Embodied Cognition in Humans and Robots" I. Aim and Scope Exploring human cognitive development constitutes a basic step towards endowing robots with high level human-like cognitive functions. Human embodied cognition follows a seamless process of development, which includes the development of sensorimotor skills, understanding concrete ideas and events, using concepts representing physical entities to describe objects, and coordinating multiple abstractions within complex representations. Investigating these aspects that bootstrap human cognitive development ? through appropriate theoretical and computational cognitive modeling ? allows for making robots capable of handling objects through the cumulative learning experiences that could develop sensorimotor skills, developing social skills through social learning strategies, grounding abstract concepts in the sensorimotor system, and developing linguistic skills in order to represent situations through language within interaction. A symbol system combines a group of tokens into structures and manipulates them through explicit rules to produce new expressions. The task of assigning a meaning to each meaningless symbol in a structure defines the "Symbol Grounding" problem, which has static physical and social components. The "Physical Symbol Grounding" allows an agent to form an internal explicit representation of an external-world referent so as to interpret symbols semantically. Whereas, the "Social Symbol Grounding" allows for developing a common lexicon of symbols grounded in perception information within a population of agents, which could lead to a gradual emergence of language through social interaction. A recent approach to semantically interpreting a symbol system is "Symbol Emergence", which accounts for the dynamic and self-organized nature of symbols that constitute human cognition. These complementary representations of a symbol system are still considered as real challenges in cognitive developmental robotics, and they require more elaborate theoretical and experimental studies in order to better understand the aspects of human behavior development. II. Themes This special issue aims to shed light on cutting-edge research lines in cognitive developmental robotics at the intersection of human cognitive science, artificial intelligence, machine learning, language science, and robotics research. Topics relevant to this special issue include, but are not limited to: - Human symbol systems and symbol emergence in robotics. - Cognitive modeling of human behavior. - Language and action development. - Learning from demonstration. - Action sequence learning. - Conceptual spaces for cognitive robotics. - Fluid and embodied construction grammar for cognitive robotics. III. Submission Manuscripts should be prepared according to the journal's ?Information for Authors? instructions found at http://cis.ieee.org/publications.html, and submissions should be done through the IEEE TCDS Manuscript center: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tcds-ieee (please select the category ?SI: Symbol Emergence?). IV. Important Dates 20 February 2017 ? Deadline for papers submission 20 May 2017 ? First notification for authors 30 June 2017 ? Deadline for revised papers submission 30 July 2017 ? Final notification for authors V. Guest Editors 1. Amir Aly, Ritsumeikan University, Japan (amir.aly at em.ci.ritsumei.ac.jp) 2. Sascha Griffiths, Universit?t Hamburg, Germany (sascha.griffiths at uni-hamburg.de) 3. Francesca Stramandinoli, IIT, Italy (francesca.stramandinoli at iit.it) 4. Tadahiro Taniguchi, Ritsumeikan University, Japan (taniguchi at em.ci.ritsumei.ac.jp ) 5. Paul Vogt, Tilburg University, The Netherlands (p.a.vogt at uvt.nl) More details about the scope of this journal special issue and the guest editors are available on: https://intelligent-robots-ws.ensta-paristech.fr/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/TCDS_SI_CFP.pdf -- Sascha S. Griffiths, PhD Knowledge Technology Group Department of Informatics University of Hamburg Vogt Koelln Str. 30 22527 Hamburg, Germany Email: griffiths at informatik.uni-hamburg.de http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/WTM/ http://www.master-intelligent-adaptive-systems.com/ From chriskanan at gmail.com Mon Dec 12 20:12:29 2016 From: chriskanan at gmail.com (Christopher Kanan) Date: Mon, 12 Dec 2016 20:12:29 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: Funded PhD and MS Programs in Imaging Science at RIT Message-ID: *RIT GRADUATE PROGRAMS IN IMAGING SCIENCE* https://www.cis.rit.edu/ Application deadline: January 15, 2017 http://www.cis.rit.edu/graduate-programs/graduate-application-process ***** Imaging Science is the interdisciplinary study of imaging and image analysis in all of its forms and uses, ranging from using deep learning for understanding scenes to studying human eye movements to developing the next generation in remote sensing technologies. The Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science at the Rochester Institute of Technology is inviting applications to its Ph.D. and M.S. programs in Imaging Science. We have extremely active research groups in computer vision, human vision, machine learning, virtual reality, remote sensing, optics, medical imaging, astronomy, and more. Graduate students at *both *the M.S. and Ph.D. levels are typically funded as Graduate Teaching Assistants during their first year, and as Research Assistants thereafter. Students at both levels are paid stipends and do not pay tuition. More details, including program structure, applications, and faculty members are available on our website: https://www.cis.rit.edu/ The closing date for applications is January 15, 2017. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From trentin at dii.unisi.it Tue Dec 13 07:46:36 2016 From: trentin at dii.unisi.it (Edmondo Trentin) Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2016 13:46:36 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Neural Processing Letters: Last CFP for the Special Issue on "Off the mainstream: advances in neural networks and machine learning for pattern recognition" Message-ID: <5f34fda308364e01369e7b05d7e7a1af.squirrel@altair.diism.unisi.it> Last Call for Papers Special issue on Off the mainstream: advances in neural networks and machine learning for pattern recognition to be published in Neural Processing Letters *** Submission deadline: January 31, 2017 *** Aims and scope of the special issue: "Mainstream science is about publishing what everyone else is publishing with very small changes. You'd better at least start off that way if you want to get tenure," the sociologist Rodney Stark said. But "big ideas don't come to those who avoid risk", as John Bohannon added. The area of artificial neural networks (ANN) and machine learning (ML) makes no exception to these ends: Mainstream topics, originally stemming from exciting breakthroughs (the "big ideas") that gradually become trends and end-up being mostly over-beaten publishing tracks, have characterized the scientific literature throughout the whole history of these research fields. A few, widely known instances of such (more or less recent) mainstream trends are: - Supervised support vector machine training (in both primal and dual) - Supervised multilayer perceptron training via regular backpropagation - Radial basis functions networks - Bayesian networks (either shallow or deep) - Deep feed-forward and convolutional neural networks - Countless applications of the aforementioned machineries - The ?approximation capabilities? of such machineries Based on these premises, this special issue invites paper submissions on real novel research developments in the areas of neural networks and learning machines that (1) are rooted in (or, aimed at) pattern recognition (PR), and that, above all, (2) do not follow in the footsteps of nowadays established trends. Preference (over applications, theoretical analysis, and variants of established techniques) will thus be given to submissions that hand out fresh and innovative ideas/architectures/algorithms, even if they are in their infancy (e.g., possibly lacking of a complete investigation of their theoretical properties). A detailed list of topics of interest would contradict the very perspective of the present special issue. Nonetheless, some general, topical research directions are (to name a few): - New ANN or ML architectures - New ANN, ML, or PR algorithms - New estimation/optimization/assessment techniques for ANNs, ML, or PR - New and sound combination/hybridization of machines - Solutions to new, relevant PR-related problems - New and sound solutions to established PR-related problems If you are not sure on whether your manuscripts matches the aims and scope of this special issue or not, do not hesitate to get in touch with the guest editors at any time. The special issue will comprise (a) papers submitted in response to this call, and (b) extended versions of selected papers from the ANNPR 2016 Workshop (https://neuro.informatik.uni-ulm.de/ANNPR2016/), sponsored by the International Association for Pattern Recognition. Paper submission: Papers must be submitted online via the Neural Processing Letters website (https://www.editorialmanager.com/nepl/default.aspx), selecting the choice that indicates this special issue (identifier: S.I.:Off_mainstream). Prepare your paper following the Journal guidelines for Authors (http://www.springer.com/computer/ai/journal/11063?detailsPage=pltci_1060677). All submitted papers will undergo a regular peer-review process. Important dates: Opening of electronic submission: September 1, 2016 Submission deadline: January 31, 2017 Completion of 1st round of review process: March 31, 2017 Re-submission of revised manuscripts: May 15, 2017 Final decision: June 30, 2017 Tentative publication of the Special Issue: Fall 2017 Guest editors: Edmondo Trentin, University of Siena, Italy (trentin at dii.unisi.it) Friedhelm Schwenker, University of Ulm, Germany (friedhelm.schwenker at uni-ulm.de) Nemat El Gayar, Cairo University, Egypt (elgayar.neamat at gmail.com) Hazem M. Abbas, Ain Shams University, Egypt (hazem.abbas at eng.asu.edu.eg) ----------------------------------------------- Edmondo Trentin, PhD Dip. Ingegneria dell'Informazione e Scienze MM. V. Roma, 56 - I-53100 Siena (Italy) E-mail: trentin at dii.unisi.it Voice: +39-0577-234636 Fax: +39-0577-233602 WWW: http://www.dii.unisi.it/~trentin -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: LAST-Open-SI-CfP.docx Type: application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document Size: 8356 bytes Desc: not available URL: From emmanuel.vincent at inria.fr Tue Dec 13 08:34:30 2016 From: emmanuel.vincent at inria.fr (Emmanuel Vincent) Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2016 14:34:30 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Internships on deep learning-based speech recognition at Inria Nancy, France Message-ID: <7579873d-8862-e111-7a74-d5ca8143829a@inria.fr> Dear list, Please forward to interested students. Our team at Inria Nancy is recruiting 4 interns in 2017 on deep learning-based speech activity detection, acoustic modeling, and language modeling for automatic speech recognition. For more details and to apply, see: https://team.inria.fr/multispeech/category/job-offers/ Working Environment: Nancy is one of the top cities to study in France with 50,000 students, cheap accomodation, a vibrant cultural scene, and good connections to Paris (1.5h), Luxemburg (1.5h), Belgium, and Germany. Inria Nancy is a 500-people research institute dedicated to computer science. The Multispeech team (https://team.inria.fr/multispeech/) is a 30-people group covering various fields of speech science, with a strong emphasis on machine learning and signal processing. -- Emmanuel Vincent Multispeech Project-Team Inria Nancy - Grand Est 615 rue du Jardin Botanique, 54600 Villers-l?s-Nancy, France Phone: +33 3 8359 3083 - Fax: +33 3 8327 8319 Web: http://members.loria.fr/evincent/ From petzschner at biomed.ee.ethz.ch Tue Dec 13 09:01:04 2016 From: petzschner at biomed.ee.ethz.ch (Petzschner Frederike) Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2016 14:01:04 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: International Computational Psychiatry Course in Zurich References: <9656357.20161213135816.584ffe782608d7.73568559@mail136-224.atl41.mandrillapp.com> Message-ID: <326CC3C5-7E32-4974-8460-C24A6B2655A9@biomed.ee.ethz.ch> [https://gallery.mailchimp.com/88baa34a20b71f6c68e5a0adc/images/cceb50e9-a562-4f7d-a8d0-fbf9efe06acc.png] It is a pleasure to announce the next international Computational Psychiatry Course organized by the Translational Neuromodeling Unit (TNU) at the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich. The 3rd CPC will take place from 28th August until 1st September 2017 in Zurich. Registration is open now! ABOUT This 5-day course is designed to provide students across fields (neuroscience, psychiatry, physics, biology, psychology....) with the necessary toolkit to master challenges in computational psychiatry research. The CPC is meant to be practically useful for students at all levels (Master, PhD, Postdoc), who would like to apply modeling techniques to study learning, decision-making or brain physiology in patients with psychiatric disorders. The course will teach not only the theory of computational modeling, but also demonstrate software in application to example data sets. In a spirit of open source and open science the content will be made freely accessible on the web. You can find detailed information on our website or follow us on twitter or facebook. STRUCTURE [https://gallery.mailchimp.com/88baa34a20b71f6c68e5a0adc/images/ea3405bf-9e68-49ed-9a14-e15cbed51e94.png] SPEAKERS [https://gallery.mailchimp.com/88baa34a20b71f6c68e5a0adc/images/dc110afb-e536-41e7-94a6-0c2c6c9d8855.png] ORGANIZERS [https://gallery.mailchimp.com/88baa34a20b71f6c68e5a0adc/images/3c760e48-bb85-4b8a-b6eb-6499d9401306.png] Translational Neuromodeling Unit University & ETH Zurich Klaas Enno Stephan Frederike Petzschner Administration: Heidi Brunner Contact Person: Gina Paolini [https://cdn-images.mailchimp.com/icons/social-block-v2/color-link-48.png] [https://cdn-images.mailchimp.com/icons/social-block-v2/color-facebook-48.png] [https://cdn-images.mailchimp.com/icons/social-block-v2/color-twitter-48.png] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From m.hennig at ed.ac.uk Tue Dec 13 08:52:13 2016 From: m.hennig at ed.ac.uk (Matthias Hennig) Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2016 13:52:13 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: PhD studentship in 2P imaging and population coding Message-ID: <398e06a3-26ff-1ff2-747d-47c2d23b99e2@ed.ac.uk> A fully funded PhD studentship is available in the Precision Medicine DTP at Edinburgh: "Deficits and rescue of neuronal population coding in the sensory cortex of mouse models of autism spectrum disorders" This project will be jointly supervised by Nathalie Rochefort, Peter Kind (CIP, Edinburgh) and Matthias Hennig (Informatics, Edinburgh). The studentship is available to EU citizens. For more information, and to apply, go to: http://www.ed.ac.uk/usher/precision-medicine/how-to-apply/deficits-and-rescue-of-neuronal-population-coding For informal inquiries, please contact Nathalie Rochefort: n.rochefort at ed.ac.uk -- Matthias H Hennig http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/mhennig/ The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336. From michele.giugliano at uantwerpen.be Wed Dec 14 09:04:53 2016 From: michele.giugliano at uantwerpen.be (Giugliano Michele) Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2016 14:04:53 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Organization for Computational Neurosciences (OCNS) - CNS2017 Meeting in Antwerpen (Belgium) - July 15-20, 2017 Message-ID: <6AF079C4-2268-45D2-AA5E-67159EB82ADA@uantwerpen.be> Dear Colleagues, apologies for cross postings. I bring to your attention the announcement of the CNS2017 Meeting, organised at the University of Antwerpen, by myself and Daniele Marinazzo. Please circulate it at your convenience and/or print and stick the A4 poster (download it here) to the door of your office, library, campus, etc. Organization for Computational Neurosciences (OCNS), 26th Annual Meeting, Antwerpen, Belgium, July 15-20, 2017 The main meeting (July 16-18) will be preceded by a day of tutorials (July 15) and followed by two days of workshops (July 19-20). Invited Keynote Speakers: Erik De Schutter, Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, Japan Panayiota Poirazi, IMBB-Forth, Greece and chair of FENS-Kavli network of excellence Fernando Lopes Da Silva, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands Anne Churchland, Cold Spring Harbour Lab, USA Registration will open on January 11, 2017. Abstract submission will open on January 12, 2017 and close on March 5. Workshop proposals are now being accepted. Note that one of the authors has to register as sponsoring author for the main meeting before abstract submission is possible. In case the abstract is not accepted for presentation, the registration fee will be refunded. For up-to-date conference information, please visit http://www.cnsorg.org/cns-2017 ---------------------------------------- OCNS is the international member-based society for computational neuroscientists. Become a member to be eligible for travel awards and more. Visit our website for more information: http://www.cnsorg.org ? Michele GIUGLIANO, PhD Dept. of Biomedical Sciences University of Antwerp B-2610 Wilrijk - Belgium www.uantwerpen.be/michele-giugliano -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From zrinka at nld.ds.mpg.de Wed Dec 14 09:18:00 2016 From: zrinka at nld.ds.mpg.de (Zrinka Gattin) Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2016 15:18:00 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Call for Workshops - Bernstein Conference 2017 In-Reply-To: <58515397.5010100@nld.ds.mpg.de> References: <58515397.5010100@nld.ds.mpg.de> Message-ID: <58515498.301@nld.ds.mpg.de> The Bernstein Network Computational Neuroscience and the Bernstein Center G?ttingen invite proposals for Satellite Workshops. Satellite Workshops will directly precede the Bernstein Conference 2017 in G?ttingen. ************************************************************** *Important Dates:* _Workshops: _September 12 - 13, 2017 _Main Bernstein Conference:_ September 13 - 15, 2017 _Deadline for proposal submission:_ March 01, 2017 _Notification of workshop acceptance:_ March 27, 2017 ************************************************************** Since 2013, the Bernstein Conference hosts pre-conference workshops. They provide a stage to discuss topical research questions, novel scientific approaches and challenges in Computational Neuroscience and related fields. Workshops addressing controversial issues, open problems, and comparisons of competing approaches are encouraged. Workshop formats should be designed to foster debate beyond a mere series of talks. The Bernstein Conference started out as the annual meeting of the Bernstein Network Computational Neuroscience and has become the largest annual single-track Computational Neuroscience conference in Europe in recent years. _Workshop time frame:_ September 12, 2017, 13:00 - 18:00 September 13, 2017, 9:00 - 12:30 Workshop proposals are welcome for either half-day or full-day workshops. Workshop costs: NEW THIS YEAR ? FINANCIAL SUPPORT: For all accepted workshops the registration is free of charge for organizers and speakers. Organizers will also receive a waiver for the main conference fee. New this year: From the accepted workshops a maximum of ten workshops will be selected to each receive financial support of up to 1.500,00 ?. For further information about the conference, please visit the conference website http://www.bernstein-conference.de. INSTRUCTIONS FOR WORKSHOP PROPOSALS PREPARATION Workshop proposals must contain: 1) Workshop Title 2) Concise description of workshop topic 3) List of potential speakers indicating speaker commitment Please use the Workshop Proposal Form that can be downloaded here: http://www.nncn.de/de/bernstein-conference/2017/satellite-workshops *Deadline for submission of Workshop proposals: March 01, 2017* Accommodation and Hotel Reservation: We strongly recommend early room booking. The number of available accommodation is limited due to several concurrent events. We arranged for room contingents in a variety of hotels that you may book by yourself by email or phone. Please follow the instructions at our Accommodations Web-site (http://www.nncn.de/de/bernstein-conference/2017/venue/accommodation). We would like to emphasize that these room contingents will be held open up to different expiration dates depending on the hotel (or until they are filled). The earliest expiration date is already end of May 2017 whereas the majority of offers expire at the 12th of July 2017. We strongly encourage participants to share rooms and to book rooms as a group. Groups of three or four are possible if you book a suite. The room contingent contains a set of suits and apartments. We emphasize that it will be very difficult to book accommodation beyond the expiration dates. Please find a list of the hotels at our Accommodations Web-site. CONTACT: contact(at)bccn-goettingen.de We are looking forward to seeing you in G?ttingen! WORKSHOP SELECTION COMMITTEE: Florentin W?rg?tter (Chair) Marion Silies (co-Chair) Christian Tetzlaff (co-Chair) Matthias Bethge Laura Busse Claudia Clopath Julia Fischer Alexander Gail Richard Hahnloser Claus Hilgetag Peter Jonas Siegrid L?wel Michael Platt Viola Priesemann Nicole Rust Fred Wolf (Conference Chair) -- Dr Zrinka Gattin Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience (BCCN) Goettingen Bernstein Focus Neurotechnology (BFNT) Goettingen PhD Program in Theoretical and Computational Neuroscience Am Fassberg 17 D-37077 Goettingen Phone: +49 (0)551 5176 418 Fax: +49 (0)551 5176 14418 E-Mail:zrinka at nld.ds.mpg.de -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jrodrig at ualg.pt Wed Dec 14 10:13:43 2016 From: jrodrig at ualg.pt (Joao Rodrigues) Date: Wed, 14 Dec 2016 15:13:43 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: IbPRIA 2017 - Final Call for Papers Message-ID: Dear Connectionists, can you please spread the IbPRIA CFP - final call. Many thanks Best regards, Jo?o Rodrigues ______________ 8th Iberian Conference on Pattern Recognition and Image Analysis (Faro, Algarve, Portugal. June 20-23, 2017) Please visit IbPRIA 2017 website: http://www.ibpria.org/2017/ facebook: https://goo.gl/dxhR3c CFP: http://www.ibpria.org/2017/cfp/IbPRia2017.pdf IMPORTANT DATES Submission of papers: January 06, 2017 (final extension) Notification of acceptance: February 17, 2017 Camera-Ready: March 10, 2017 Tutorials: June 20, 2017 Conference: June 20-23, 2017 ************************************************************ *************************** CALL FOR PAPERS ************************************************************ *************************** The eighth edition of the Iberian Conference on Pattern Recognition and Image Analysis, IbPRIA 2017, will be held in Faro, Algarve, Portugal, June 20-23, 2017. IbPRIA is an international conference co-organised by the Spanish AERFAI and the Portuguese APRP, chapters of the IAPR International Association for Pattern Recognition. IbPRIA is a single track conference consisting of high quality, previously unpublished papers, presented either orally or as a poster, intended to act as a forum for research groups, engineers and practitioners to present recent results, algorithmic improvements and promising future directions in pattern recognition and image analysis. All accepted papers will appear in the conference proceedings, and will be published in Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science Series, Springer LNCS. A copy of the proceedings will be distributed to all participants at the Conference. A short list of presented papers will be selected so that revised and extended versions of these papers will be published in the Pattern Analysis and Applications journal . We invite authors to submit papers in the following and related areas: - Pattern Recognition - Image Analysis - Computer Vision - Multimedia Systems - Statistical and Structural Pattern Recognition - Machine Learning and Data Mining - Bioinformatics - Image Coding and Processing - Shape and Texture Analysis - Information Systems - Biometric Technologies - Speech Recognition - Document Processing - Character and Text Recognition - Robotics - Remote Sensing - Industrial Applications of Pattern Recognition - Special Hardware Architectures INVITED SPEAKERS Gavin Brown, University of Manchester, UK Marcello Pelillo, Ca' Foscari University, Venice, Italy Ivan Laptev, INRIA Paris, France TUTORIALS Philosophical Aspects of Machine Learning, Marcello Pelillo, Ca' Foscari University, Venice, Italy Structured Representations for Text and Images, Frank Keller, Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK PAPER SUBMISSION Papers should describe original and unpublished work on the topics of the conference. Prospective authors should prepare a full paper, written in English, not exceeding 8 pages and must submit it electronically. Further information can be found on the conference website. Each paper will be blind-reviewed by at least two reviewers and will be accepted based on its originality, significance and clarity. Submission implies that at least one of the authors has to register and to present the communication at the conference if the paper is accepted. __________________________________ Jo?o Rodrigues Universidade do Algarve, Instituto Superior de Engenharia, Faro, Portugal LARSyS, Vision Laboratory, ISE, University of the Algarve, Faro, Portugal http://w3.ualg.pt/~jrodrig -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From elizabeth.wiesman at wright.edu Thu Dec 15 10:56:52 2016 From: elizabeth.wiesman at wright.edu (Wiesman, Liz) Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2016 15:56:52 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Graduate Level or Post-Doctoral Research Position in Computational Cognitive Science Message-ID: Please post this position announcement to the Connectionist listserv: ***Graduate Level or Post-Doctoral Research Position in Computational Cognitive Science*** Dear colleagues, A fully funded research position is available at the Wright State Research Institute of Wright State University, Dayton Ohio. The Computational Cognitive Scientist will work on a DOD funded program applying principles and insights from the science of human learning to enhance the design of artificial learning systems, including human-in-the-loop systems. For more details about the project and how to apply, please consult: https://jobs.wright.edu/postings/11106 Further inquiries can be made directly to: brad.minnery at wright.edu Respectfully, Elizabeth Wiesman Resource Manager Wright State Research Institute 4035 Colonel Glenn Highway Beavercreek, OH 45431 PH: 937.705.1006 SECURE FAX: 937.705.1302 EMAIL: elizabeth.wiesman at wright.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ckello at ucmerced.edu Wed Dec 14 20:29:58 2016 From: ckello at ucmerced.edu (Chris Kello) Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2016 01:29:58 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: NSF Research Traineeship Ph.D. positions available in Intelligent Adaptive Systems Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, The University of California, Merced has funded Ph.D. positions available as part of a new NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) program in Intelligent Adaptive Systems (Award 1633722). The program is a collaboration between six of our standing Ph.D. programs: Applied Mathematics, Cognitive Science, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, and Quantitative and Systems Biology. The aim is to train the next generation of scientists and engineers who will make breakthroughs in interdisciplinary theories and applications of intelligent adaptive systems. More information can be found at http://www.nrt-ias.org. The deadline to apply is January 15th, 2017. If you are interested, apply to one of the six Ph.D. programs listed above. You will earn a degree in your home program, and your education will be enhanced with interdisciplinary training and research projects as part of the NRT. Your degree will also include a designated emphasis in intelligent adaptive systems (pending approval). In the Statement of Research Interests that is part of your standard Ph.D. program application, include a section entitled "NRT program in Intelligent Adaptive Systems". In this section, briefly describe how your research interests and educational background fit with the NRT. If you are accepted into the Ph.D. program you applied to, you will also be considered for the NRT program. If you have any questions, please contact any of the four faculty members who serve on the NRT executive committee: Professor Ramesh Balasubramaniam (ramesh at ucmerced.edu) Cognitive and Information Sciences http://www.rameshlab.com Professor Stefano Carpin (scarpin at ucmerced.edu) Electrical Engineering and Computer Science http://robotics.ucmerced.edu Professor Chris Kello (ckello at ucmerced.edu) Cognitive and Information Sciences http://cogmech.ucmerced.edu Professor Suzanne Sindi (ssindi at ucmerced.edu) Applied Mathematics http://faculty.ucmerced.edu/ssindi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From elizabeth.wiesman at wright.edu Thu Dec 15 16:11:04 2016 From: elizabeth.wiesman at wright.edu (Wiesman, Liz) Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2016 21:11:04 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Graduate Level or Post-Doctoral Research Position in Computational Cognitive Science Message-ID: Please post this position announcement to the Connectionist listserv: ***Graduate Level or Post-Doctoral Research Position in Computational Cognitive Science*** Dear colleagues, A fully funded research position is available at the Wright State Research Institute of Wright State University, Dayton Ohio. The Computational Cognitive Scientist will work on a DOD funded program applying principles and insights from the science of human learning to enhance the design of artificial learning systems, including human-in-the-loop systems. For more details about the project and how to apply, please consult: https://jobs.wright.edu/postings/11106 Further inquiries can be made directly to: brandon.minnery at wright.edu Respectfully, Elizabeth Wiesman Resource Manager Wright State Research Institute 4035 Colonel Glenn Highway Beavercreek, OH 45431 PH: 937.705.1006 SECURE FAX: 937.705.1302 EMAIL: elizabeth.wiesman at wright.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ckello at ucmerced.edu Wed Dec 14 20:29:58 2016 From: ckello at ucmerced.edu (Chris Kello) Date: Thu, 15 Dec 2016 01:29:58 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: NSF Research Traineeship Ph.D. positions available in Intelligent Adaptive Systems Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, The University of California, Merced has funded Ph.D. positions available as part of a new NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) program in Intelligent Adaptive Systems (Award 1633722). The program is a collaboration between six of our standing Ph.D. programs: Applied Mathematics, Cognitive Science, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Mechanical Engineering, and Quantitative and Systems Biology. The aim is to train the next generation of scientists and engineers who will make breakthroughs in interdisciplinary theories and applications of intelligent adaptive systems. More information can be found at http://www.nrt-ias.org. The deadline to apply is January 15th, 2017. If you are interested, apply to one of the six Ph.D. programs listed above. You will earn a degree in your home program, and your education will be enhanced with interdisciplinary training and research projects as part of the NRT. Your degree will also include a designated emphasis in intelligent adaptive systems (pending approval). In the Statement of Research Interests that is part of your standard Ph.D. program application, include a section entitled "NRT program in Intelligent Adaptive Systems". In this section, briefly describe how your research interests and educational background fit with the NRT. If you are accepted into the Ph.D. program you applied to, you will also be considered for the NRT program. If you have any questions, please contact any of the four faculty members who serve on the NRT executive committee: Professor Ramesh Balasubramaniam (ramesh at ucmerced.edu) Cognitive and Information Sciences http://www.rameshlab.com Professor Stefano Carpin (scarpin at ucmerced.edu) Electrical Engineering and Computer Science http://robotics.ucmerced.edu Professor Chris Kello (ckello at ucmerced.edu) Cognitive and Information Sciences http://cogmech.ucmerced.edu Professor Suzanne Sindi (ssindi at ucmerced.edu) Applied Mathematics http://faculty.ucmerced.edu/ssindi -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From volker.roth at unibas.ch Fri Dec 16 03:36:38 2016 From: volker.roth at unibas.ch (Volker Roth) Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2016 08:36:38 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: University of Basel (Switzerland): Three open PhD position in Data Analytics / Big Data Message-ID: University of Basel (Switzerland): Three open PhD position in Data Analytics / Big Data Applications are invited for three PhD positions in computer science / environmental sciences associated with the interdisciplinary research project "WeObserve: Integrating Citizen Observers and High Throughput Sensing Devices for Big Data Collection, Integration, and Analysis", which is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation within the National Research Program "Big Data". General description. In collaboration with the Department of Environmental Sciences and The Swiss Ornithological Institute we investigate methods for data collection, integration, and analysis in cases where heterogeneous sources need to be combined, and their application for monitoring geographical and ecological processes. Specific contributions. The central technical challenges are: Data collection & integration: to seamlessly combine high throughput sensing devices which produce very large volumes of data and cover large areas, Citizen Observers which provide semantically rich data, but with varying levels of precision and substantial sampling bias, and specific high resolution sensing devices that need to be manually deployed. Data analysis: to use machine learning methods for estimating spatio-temporal models and to detect hidden patterns in heterogeneous data collections. Applications: on the practical side, we focus on two applications, namely soil degradation monitoring (with specific emphasis on erosion and landslide monitoring in alpine regions) and bird monitoring (based on citizen observatories and radar data). Prerequisites. Candidates should have a Master's degree in computer science, environmental sciences, applied mathematics, physics or related fields. They are interested to work in an interdisciplinary research environment and have good communication skills (English). Successful candidates will be awarded a fellowship with a competitive salary. Applications with a full CV, short statement of research interests and names of at least one referee should be submitted in electronic form with the subject line "PhD in Data Analytics" - followed by the specialization "Data collection & integration", "Data analysis", or "Applications" to: volker.roth at unibas.ch Volker Roth Department of Mathematics and Computer Science University of Basel, Spiegelgasse 1, CH-4051 Basel, Switzerland Submission deadline: Jan 31, 2017 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From simone.scardapane at uniroma1.it Fri Dec 16 04:18:41 2016 From: simone.scardapane at uniroma1.it (Simone Scardapane) Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2016 10:18:41 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: CfP: 18th Int. Conf. on Engineering Applications of Neural Networks Message-ID: <4f3a5ba6-5116-6bd2-758b-73d4d066a345@uniroma1.it> [Apologies if you receive multiple copies of this CFP] -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 18th Int. Conf. on Engineering Applications of Neural Networks EANN 2017 (Athens, Greece, August 25-27, 2017) Workshop submission deadline: 11th February, 2017 Paper submission deadline: 20th April, 2017 https://conferences.cwa.gr/eann2017/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Call for Papers -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Authors are invited to submit electronically original, English-language research contributions or experience reports not concurrently submitted elsewhere in ALL ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TOPICS! Papers should be no longer than 10 pages formatted according to the LNCS Springer style. The program committee may reject papers that exceed this length on the grounds of length alone. In the spirit of the previous EANN conferences, the paper should concentrate on the application rather than just the algorithm or the theory. Submitted papers will be refereed by at least three reviewers for quality, correctness, originality, and relevance. Notification and reviews will be communicated via email. Accepted papers will be presented at the conference and included in the proceedings, which will be published by SPRINGER CCIS ?Communications in Computer and Information Science? and they will be available on site. It is important though to follow the instructions in this page to ensure that your paper will be included in the proceedings. Call for Workshops -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Proposals for Workshops that examine emerging, innovative, or otherwise provocative issues within the conference area are encouraged as well. Workshop proposals should include a 1-2 page summary of the topic and the names and affiliations of 3-4 panelists who have made a commitment to participate. https://conferences.cwa.gr/eann2017/call-for-workshops/ Areas of interest: https://conferences.cwa.gr/eann2017/areas-of-interest/ Important dates -------------------------------------------------------------------------- * Tutorial and workshops proposals: February 11th, 2017 * Notification of tutorial and workshops proposals: February 12th, 2017 * Paper submission: April 20th, 2017 * Notification of paper acceptance: May 13th, 2017 * Conference Dates: 25-27 August, 2017 From bremeseiro at udc.es Fri Dec 16 05:30:57 2016 From: bremeseiro at udc.es (Beatriz Remeseiro =?utf-8?Q?L=C3=B3pez?=) Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2016 11:30:57 +0100 (CET) Subject: Connectionists: ICIAR 2017: Call for Papers + News (Extended deadline: January 23, 2017) In-Reply-To: <215174370.4196095.1481884242665.JavaMail.zimbra@udc.es> Message-ID: <1633091642.4196232.1481884257430.JavaMail.zimbra@udc.es> -------------------------------------------------------------- Apologies if you receive this more than once. -------------------------------------------------------------- ================================================================= CALL FOR PAPERS (Deadline: January 23, 2017) http://www.aimiconf.org/iciar17 ================================================================= ICIAR 2017 - 14th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON IMAGE ANALYSIS AND RECOGNITION July 5-7, 2017, Montreal, Canada http://www.aimiconf.org/iciar17 ================================================================= ICIAR News: New submission deadline: January 23, 2017 Plenary Speakers: Terry Peters, Tien Bui, Andrew Wong ICIAR Special Session/Workshop: Machine Learning for Medical Image Computing, chaired by Alex Wong and Farzad Khalvati ICIAR Best paper Award Travel grants of $500CAD each for a selected number of overseas students (out of North America) ================================================================= Conference Chairs: Fakhri Karray University of Waterloo, Canada Aurelio Campilho University of Porto, Portugal Farida Cheriet Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal, Canada Plenary Speakers: Terry Peters Robarts Research Institute, Western University, London, Canada Tien Bui Concordia University, Montreal, Canada Andrew Wong University of Waterloo, Canada ICIAR Special Session/Workshop: Machine Learning for Medical Image Computing Workshop Chairs: Alex Wong, University of Waterloo, Waterloo Farzad Khalvati, Sunnybrook Research Institute, Toronto ================================================================= ICIAR 2017 is the 14th of a series of ICIAR conferences organized in Portugal and Canada. Authors are invited to submit full papers showing original research contributions. The page limit is 8 pages (1-column - LNCS Springer format), plus 2 extra pages. The sessions will comprise invited keynote speakers and oral and poster presentations. Authors are invited to submit full papers under the topics of the conference, addressing original research developments. The conference proceedings will be published in the Springer LNCS - Lecture Notes in Computer Science series. ================================================================= CONFERENCE TOPICS ================================================================= FOCUS TOPICS 1) Machine Learning in Image Recognition 2) Image and Video Processing and Analysis: Image restoration and enhancement Image and video segmentation Mathematical morphology Color, texture and motion analysis 3D image analysis Tracking Shape and matching Real time imaging 3) Image and Video Coding: Still image and video coding Image and video encryption 4) Image Retrieval and Indexing: Image and video databases Image and video retrieval and indexing 5) Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning Methods: Feature extraction and selection methods Classification and clustering techniques Ensembles and multi-classifiers Hybrid methods Syntactical methods 6) Applications: Biomedical imaging Biometrics Document processing Remote sensing Multimedia Security systems Visual inspection Sports Other applications ================================================================= PAPER SUBMISSION ================================================================= Authors are invited to submit full papers showing original research contributions. The conference proceedings is planned to be published in the Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science series (Springer LNCS). Only electronic submission will be accepted through the conference paper submission web page. See the conference web site for details. ================================================================= ICIAR Best Paper Award and Student travel Grants ================================================================= ICIAR 2017 announces a Best Paper Award to a paper presented at the Conference and selected by an award committee. ICIAR 2017 also announces the availability of a limited number of student travel grants (STG) of $500CAD (five hundred Canadian dollars) each, to support the travel expenses of students from outside North America. The eligibility criteria for STG are: to be a full-time student; have at least one paper accepted; have registered and presenting a paper (oral or poster) in the conference. ================================================================= IMPORTANT DATES ================================================================= Paper Submission deadline: January 23, 2017 Author Notification: March 1, 2017 Camera-ready version: March 15, 2017 Paper registration: April 7, 2017 Conference: July 5-7, 2017 Please find the call for papers and more information at the conference website: http://www.aimiconf.org/iciar17 ================================================================= From cjlin at csie.ntu.edu.tw Fri Dec 16 18:23:35 2016 From: cjlin at csie.ntu.edu.tw (Chih-Jen Lin) Date: Sat, 17 Dec 2016 07:23:35 +0800 Subject: Connectionists: Faculty position at Computer Science Department, National Taiwan Univ. Message-ID: <4c5vauj5uh4.fsf@csie.ntu.edu.tw> The Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, and the Graduate Institute of Networking and Multimedia at National Taiwan Univ. have faculty openings at all ranks beginning in August 2017. Highly qualified candidates in all areas of computer science are invited to apply. A Ph.D. or its equivalent is required. Applicants are expected to conduct outstanding research and be committed to teaching. Candidates should check http://www.csie.ntu.edu.tw/faculty_recruiting/ for submitting applications. The deadline is February 15, 2017. Contact Prof. Chih-Jen Lin at faculty_search at csie.ntu.edu.tw for any questions. An early submission is strongly encouraged. From birgit.ahrens at bcf.uni-freiburg.de Fri Dec 16 07:28:17 2016 From: birgit.ahrens at bcf.uni-freiburg.de (Birgit Ahrens) Date: Fri, 16 Dec 2016 13:28:17 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: PhD positions available in Computational Neuroscience, Neurotechnology, and Neurophysiology in Freiburg, Germany Message-ID: The Bernstein Center Freiburg (BCF) is inviting applications for PhD positions in the labs of Carsten Mehring and Ulrich Egert. The BCF concentrates research in Computational Neuroscience and Neurotechnology at the University of Freiburg, Germany. The projects are highly interdisciplinary and span across mathematical-theoretical approaches on the function and dynamics of neuronal networks, neuroanatomy, experimentally driven neurophysiology and the development of technologies for medical application. The deadline for applications is January 31, 2017. For more information, please visit our website http://www.bcf.uni-freiburg.de/jobs -- Dr. Birgit Ahrens Teaching & Training Coordinator Bernstein Center Freiburg University of Freiburg Hansastr. 9a D - 79104 Freiburg Germany Phone: +49 (0) 761 203-9575 Fax: +49 (0) 761 203-9559 From mpavone at dmi.unict.it Sat Dec 17 13:02:18 2016 From: mpavone at dmi.unict.it (Mario Pavone) Date: Sat, 17 Dec 2016 19:02:18 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: CFP: Special session on AIS @ CEC 2017 Message-ID: <20161217190218.Horde.BMWAFuph4B9YVX2qzkqVfEA@mbox.dmi.unict.it> * Apologies if you received multiple copies * Please kindly forward to those who may be interested. CALL FOR PAPERS Artificial Immune Systems: Algorithms, Simulation, Modelling & Theory IEEE CEC 2017 Special Session June 20-23, 2017, Donostia - San Sebasti?n, Spain http://ieee-cis-ais.org/ais-cec2017/ ais.cec2017 at gmail.com *** SUBMISSION deadline: January 16, 2017 The Immune System protects organisms against diseases, and over the years has been an important source of inspiration for the development of algorithms to be applied in a wide range of applications, such as learning, pattern recognition, optimisation and classification. Many of these algorithms are built on solid theoretical foundations, through understanding mathematical models and computational simulation of aspects of the immune system. The scope of this research area ranges from modelling to simulation of the immune system, to the development of novel engineering solutions to complex problems, and bridges several disciplines to provide new insights into immunology, computer science, mathematics and engineering. This special session aims to focus on the recent advances on Artificial Immune Systems (AIS) field, also offering new conceptual models for understanding the dynamics that underlie the immune system. This special session is supported by IEEE CIS Task Force on Artificial Immune Systems (http://ieee-cis-ais.org). Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: - Computational & Mathematical modelling of the Immune System; - Theoretical aspects of immune inspired algorithms; - Novel algorithms and new immune operators; - Benchmarking immune inspired algorithms against other techniques; - Empirical and Theoretical investigations into performance and complexity of immune inspired algorithms; - Hybridisation of immune inspired algorithms with other techniques; - Systems & Synthetic Immunology. All the papers have to be submitted electronically through the congress application. The deadline for contribution paper submission is *January 16, 2017*. Authors are invited to submit original and unpublished papers on any topics related to AIS. * IMPORTANT DATES: paper submission: January 16, 2017 notification of acceptance: February 26, 2017 final paper submission: March 12, 2017 Conference dates: June 5-8, 2017 * PAPER SUBMISSION: Manuscripts should be prepared according to the standard format and page limit of regular papers specified in CEC 2017 webpage (http://www.cec2017.org), and submitted via the official submission system. Special session papers are treated the same way as regular conference papers. Please specify that your paper is for the special session on AIS: Algorithms, Simulation, Modelling & Theory. All accepted papers will be published in the CEC electronic proceedings and included in the IEEE Xplore digital library, and indexed by EI Compendex. * ORGANIZERS: Thomas Jansen, Aberystwyth University, UK Mario Pavone, University of Catania, Italy Jon Timmis, University of York, UK -- Dr. Mario Pavone (PhD) Assistant Professor Department of Mathematics and Computer Science University of Catania V.le A. Doria 6 - 95125 Catania, Italy tel: 0039 095 7383038 fax: 0039 095 330094 Email: mpavone at dmi.unict.it http://www.dmi.unict.it/mpavone/ ====================================================== From marcello.pelillo at gmail.com Sun Dec 18 12:03:27 2016 From: marcello.pelillo at gmail.com (Marcello Pelillo) Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2016 18:03:27 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Assistant/Associate Professor Positions in Computer Science - Venice (Italy) Message-ID: *Call for Associate Professor in Computer Science* Call for Expression of Interest Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Italy The Dept. of Env. Science, Informatics and Statistics (DAIS) of Ca' Foscari University of Venice (UCF) announces an open faculty position in Computer Science at the senior level - Tenured Associate Professor - sector 01/B1 - INF/01 (Informatica). DAIS invites interested candidates to electronically apply for the position. The call will be published soon (by the end of Dec 2016) on this page: http://intra.unive.it/plapps/bandi/common/showcat.pl?catego ria=pdp2&descrizione=Professore+II+fascia Further open positions as Tenure Track Assistant Professor or Tenured Associate Professor will be opened during the next year. We invite all applicants, interested in the upcoming or future open positions, to submit an expression of interest to call-cs.dais at unive.it Deadline for sending an expression of interest Jan 9th, 2017 Requirements Phd, good publication record, participation/leadership in research projects, experience in teaching at graduate/undergraduate levels in English and/or Italian. According to the Italian legislation, to apply for a Tenured Associate Professorship candidates have to possess an Italian Scientific Habilitation for this position, or they have to hold an equivalent academic position (associate professor) at their current Italian or foreign university. Moreover, in order to apply for a Tenure Track Assistant Professorship, candidates must have completed three years of postdoc research. Computer and Data Science at Ca' Foscari Computer Science at UCF has a relatively long tradition. Since more than 25 years we offer a complete cycle of study in Computer Science, including Bachelor, Master, and PhD (1st, 2nd, and 3rd level, according to the Bologna framework), where the instruction language of the Master/PhD programs is English. Our group of researchers and instructors also includes statisticians, along with we designed specializations in "Data Science" within our degrees. Our faculty is also involved in offering novel educational programs. Besides the new professional master in "Digital Humanities", we are planning an innovative Bachelor course in "Digital Management", which offers students the possibility of acquiring advanced skills on ICT, Management and Economics, in strict collaboration with companies and startuppers. The main research activities on "Computer and Data Science" at DAIS are organized around two centers: "Center for AdvanCes in Autonomous, DIstributed and pervAsive systems" (ACADIA) and "Center for Knowledge, Interaction and Intelligent Systems" (KIIS). The ACADIA center aims at contributing effective answers to the scientific and technological issues underlying several challenges related to the development of software and systems, including distributed and cloud ones, with characteristics of dependability, security, and correctness. The KIIS center emphasizes the research challenges concerning three main dimensions, namely data and knowledge management, multimodal interactive interfaces, and intelligent artificial and computer vision systems that mimic human cognitive abilities. How to submit an expression of interest Submit a complete CV with an accompanying statement of purpose letter to call-cs.dais at unive.it by Jan 9th, 2017. The CV (written in English or Italian) should include the following information: - complete personal details - contact information (email, phone, skype id) - bibliometric indices (Scopus/Google Scholar/...) - education and qualifications - research and teaching experience - complete list of publications Short-listed candidates will be invited for an interview/seminar. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nian.zhang6 at gmail.com Sun Dec 18 15:13:19 2016 From: nian.zhang6 at gmail.com (Nian Ashlee Zhang) Date: Sun, 18 Dec 2016 15:13:19 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: [Mycolleagues] Second Call for Papers - ISNN 2017 (Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan, June 21-23, 2017) Message-ID: *Call for Papers* *The 14th International Symposium on Neural Networks (ISNN 2017), Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan, June 21-23, 2017* https://conference.cs.cityu.edu.hk/isnn/ The 14th International Symposium on Neural Networks (ISNN 2017) will be held in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan during June 21-23, 2017, following the successes of previous events. Located in northern island of Hokkaido, Sapporo is the fourth largest Japanese city and a popular summer/winter tourist venue. ISNN 2017 aims to provide a high-level international forum for scientists, engineers, and educators to present the state of the art of neural network research and applications in related fields. The symposium will feature plenary speeches given by world renowned scholars, regular sessions with broad coverage, and special sessions focusing on popular topics. Authors are invited to submit full-length papers by the submission deadline through the online submission system. The submission of a paper implies that the paper is original and has not been submitted under review or is not copyright-protected elsewhere and will be presented by an author if accepted. All submitted papers will be refereed by experts in the field based on the criteria of originality, significance, quality, and clarity. Papers presented at ISNN 2017 will be published in the EI-indexed proceedings in the Springer LNCS series and selected good papers will be included in special issues of several SCI journals. *Important Dates* - Paper submission: January 1, 2017 - Notification of acceptance: February 1, 2017 - Camera-ready copy and author registration: March 1, 2017 - Conference: June 21-23, 2017 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- ------------------------------------------------------- We love you. We are sorry. Please forgive us. Thank you. _______________________________________________ Mycolleagues mailing list Mycolleagues at mailman.ufsc.br http://mailman.ufsc.br/mailman/listinfo/mycolleagues - Through this links above you can "subscribe", "unsubscribe", or change your settings in the list. OR - Easy unsubscribe: http://mailman.ufsc.br/mailman/options/mycolleagues From mcallester at ttic.edu Mon Dec 19 08:39:21 2016 From: mcallester at ttic.edu (David McAllester) Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2016 07:39:21 -0600 Subject: Connectionists: Workshop on Symbolic-Neural Learning (SNL) in Nagoya, submission deadline March 15. Message-ID: We are pleased remind members of this community of the Workshop on Symbolic-Neural Learning (SNL) to be held July 7-8, 2017 in Nagoya Japan. Submission deadline March 15, 2017. Symbolic-neural learning involves deep learning methods in combination with symbolic structures. A "deep learning method" is taken to ?be any method for ?non-convex optimization of a large number of real-valued model parameters. ? See the web site for more discussion.? ?K eynote speakers ? will include? Yoshua Bengio (invited) Universit? de Montr?al, Montr?al, Canada William Cohen (invited) Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA Masashi Sugiyama RIKEN and University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan Jun'ichi Tsujii AI Center, AIST, Tokyo, Japan Other details can be found at the web site. David McAllester, Yutaka Sasaki Program co-chairs -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tarek.besold at googlemail.com Mon Dec 19 11:30:35 2016 From: tarek.besold at googlemail.com (Tarek R. Besold) Date: Mon, 19 Dec 2016 17:30:35 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: 1st CfP: Workshop on "Cognition and Ontologies" (CAOS) 2017 - AISB 2017, April 18-21, 2017/University of Bath, UK Message-ID: <003901d25a15$3a856740$af9035c0$@gmail.com> AISB CAOS 2017: Cognition And OntologieS (April 18-21, 2017 / University of Bath, UK) *** DEADLINE: Monday, 15 February 2017, ALL submissions*** Accepted Submissions: Short papers: max. 6 pages, 15 minutes presentation Position papers: max. 6 pages, 15 minutes presentations Full research papers: max. 12 pages, 30 minutes presentation (Page number includes references, presentations include Q&A.) Submission Procedure: All submissions are to be done via EasyChair website: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=caos20160 Also see the symposium website for details: http://caos.inf.unibz.it/ CAOS 2017 welcomes researchers from all career stages to participate. Work in progress and student projects are also welcome for submission as the primary goal of the workshop is discussion. All paper must be original and not submitted to or accepted by any other workshop, conference or journal and should follow the template provided by AISB. All accepted papers will be part of the AISB 2017 convention proceedings. All contributions will be peer-reviewed, and the review process will be managed in a collaborative and transparent manner using the EasyChair System. The interdisciplinary nature necessitates an equally mixed program committee. Important dates: Submission deadline: 15th February Notification of acceptance: 1st March Camera-ready version: 7th March Scope: CAOS addresses the difficult and topical question how key cognitive phenomena and concepts (and the involved terminology) that can be found across language, psychology and reasoning, can be formally and ontologically understood, analysed and represented. It moreover seeks answers to ways such formalisations and ontological analysis can be exploited in Artificial Intelligence and information systems in general. The notion of embodied experience has become increasingly influential in terms of how concepts are thought to develop from a cognitive perspective and also on how concept invention could be formally modelled. In this perspective, several key notions from cognitive science are seen to be important. For example, image schemas are suggested to be conceptual building blocks deriving from the embodied experience, and in turn, in essence they are often seen to model object affordances in the environment. The theory of image schemas has been an influential theory in linguistics (not the least in metaphor research) and in developmental psychology for over twenty years, and has recently been looked at from research in artificial intelligence as a means to approach the symbol grounding problem and natural language understanding. On the other hand, criticism towards the embodied perspective has been brought forward by many proponents of more classical approaches to AI and cognitive modelling, with the discussion still ongoing and the outcome uncertain. The goal of this workshop is to provide a forum for researchers from a range of perspectives and disciplines who are interested in discussing these questions further. We welcome submissions on topics related to the ontology of hypothesised building blocks of cognition (such as, for instance, image schemas, affordances, and related notions) and of cognitive capacities (such as, for instance, concept invention), as well as system-demonstrations modelling these capacities in application settings. The topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following: Cognitive knowledge representation: - Modelling cognitive phenomena - Computational language acquisition - Formalisation of language, image schemas and/or affordance Cognition and language: - Embodied cognition - Concept invention - Cognitive development from an ontological perspective - Image schemas / affordances in natural language Artificial intelligence and applications: - AI for language understanding - Image schemas / affordances in artificial intelligence - Natural language applications / system-demonstrations - Embodied approaches to knowledge acquisition in AI and Robotics - Concept invention and concept-based computational creativity Symposium Organisers: - Maria M. Hedblom: Otto-von-Guericke University, Magdeburg, Germany. - Tarek R. Besold: University of Bremen, Germany. - Oliver Kutz: Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy. Programme Committee: - Mihailo Antovi?: Faculty of Philosophy, University of Ni?, Serbia - John Bateman: Faculty of Linguistics and Literary Studies, University of Bremen, Germany - Brandon Bennett: School of computing, University of Leeds, UK - Stephano Borgo: Laboratory for Applied Ontology, ISTC-CNR, Trento, Italy - Cem Bozsahin: Cognitive Science Department, Informatics Institute, METU, Turkey - Roberta Ferrario: Laboratory for Applied Ontology, ISTC-CNR, Italy - Bipin Indurkhya: Computer Science Department at AGH University, Krakow, Poland - Alessandro Oltramari: Bosch Research and Technology Center, Pittsburgh, US - Rafael Penaloza Nyssen: KRDB Research Centre for Knowledge and Data, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy - Sebastian Rudolph: Faculty of computer science, Technische Universit?t Dresden, Germany - Marco Schorlemmer: IIIA-CSIC, Bellaterra, Spain - Gem Stapleton: Computer Science Faculty, University of Brighton, UK -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mlsp at neuro.kuleuven.be Tue Dec 20 06:42:26 2016 From: mlsp at neuro.kuleuven.be (2016 IEEE International Workshop on Machine Learning fo Signal Processing) Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2016 12:42:26 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Spatio-temporal beamforming for fast time-locked EEG component detection Message-ID: <58591922.1080707@neuro.kuleuven.be> We developed a new algorithm for time-locked EEG component detection and applied to it even to single-trial P300, N400 and even to synchronous, amplitude-based SSVEP detection. The algorithm is based on a spatiotemporal extension of the original spatial linearly-contrained minimum-variance (LCMV) beamformer. All papers can be retrieved from https://kuleuven.box.com/s/1ff5qozg68jok7dddxror0ev45fr6ola N400: The N400 event-related potential (ERP) is mainly employed to study language processing, and is traditionally extracted by averaging over multiple trials. Being able to analyse individual trials (epochs) has clear statistical advantages, and allows for more detailed hypotheses. The study by Van Vliet et al. 2016 has shown that the spatiotemporal beamformer can be successfully employed for the analysis of each individual spatiotemporal N400 trial, and that with this technique more detailed analysis can be achieved. - M. van Vliet, N. Chumerin, S. De Deyne, J. R. Wiersema, W. Fias, G. Storms, and M. M. Van Hulle. Single-trial erp component analysis using a spatiotemporal lcmv beamformer. IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, 63(1):5566, Jan 2016. - Code available at https://github.com/wmvanvliet/ERP-beamformer P300: The P300 ERP is often used for building a brain-computer interface (BCI), that allows (re-)establishing a communication channel for people suffering from motor-and communication disabilities (ALS, LIS, stroke, etc.). Limiting the number of trials (i.e., how many times all targets are flashed) increases the communication speeed of the BCI. A study by Wittevrongel and Van Hulle 2016, has employed the spatiotemporal beamformer towards this purpose, and has shown state-of-the-art performance in P300 detection, with the advantage of faster training of the classifier. - B. Wittevrongel and M. M. Van Hulle. Faster p300 classifier training using spatiotemporal beamforming. International Journal of Neural Systems, 26(03):1650014, May 2016. SSVEP: The steady-state visual evoked potential (SSVEP) is another paradigm used for building BCIs. The goal is to detect which frequency is present in the (mainly occipital) EEG. While traditionally analyses investigate the frequency domain, a study from Wittevrongel and Van Hulle 2016 has employed a combination of a time domain techinque and the spatiotemporal beamformer. The study has shown an improvement over existing state-of-the-art algorithms, especially for short signals (~ 1 second). - B. Wittevrongel and M. M. Van Hulle. Frequency- and phase encoded ssvep using spatiotemporal beamforming. PLOS ONE, 11(8):e0159988, Aug 2016. DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0159988 - B. Wittevrongel and M. M. Van Hulle. Hierarchical online ssvep spelling achieved with spatiotemporal beamforming. 2016 IEEE Statistical Signal Processing Workshop (SSP), Jun 2016. From stefan.kiebel at tu-dresden.de Tue Dec 20 08:44:22 2016 From: stefan.kiebel at tu-dresden.de (Stefan Kiebel) Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2016 13:44:22 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: PhD position in Computational Neuroscience, Dresden/Germany Message-ID: <1482241465970.61907@tu-dresden.de> There is an open PhD student position at the TU Dresden, Germany. We are looking for a PhD student in computational neuroscience. The position is placed at the interface between advanced computational modelling and experimental work based on measuring single neuron and network activity using two-photon calcium imaging. Detailed information can be found at: http://tiny.cc/ykfvhy. The position is part of the priority program 1665 (German Research Foundation) 'Resolving and manipulating neuronal networks in the mammalian brain - from correlative to causal analysis' and will be funded for the next three years. The candidate will work in an interdisciplinary team of both computational and experimental neuroscientists, working closely together. The aim of the project is to continue our previous work of developing novel network models of calcium imaging data, which can be directly used by experimenters for testing interesting and important questions about the maturation of visual cortex. -- Prof. Dr. Stefan Kiebel Technische Universit?t Dresden School of Science Department of Psychology 01062 Dresden, Germany Tel.: +49 (351) 463-43145 Fax: +49 (351) 463-43147 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dhallabhinav at gmail.com Tue Dec 20 13:25:17 2016 From: dhallabhinav at gmail.com (abhinav dhall) Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2016 13:25:17 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: IEEE ISBA 2017 - Registration Open Message-ID: Early registration open ----------------------------------------------- IEEE International Conference on Identity, Security and Behavior Analysis (ISBA 2017) Location: New Delhi, India Dates: February 22-24 2017 http://ieee-biometrics.org/isba2017/ Co-located with the Winter School on Machine Learning in Biometrics http://iab-rubric.org/mlib2017/ ----------------------------------------------- Last date for early registration - January 15th 2017 Registration link - http://ieee-biometrics.org/isba2017/registration.html Keynote speaker at the conference: Nasir Memon (New York University) Expert speakers at the winter school: Narendra Ahuja (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) Rama Chellapa (University of Maryland, College Park) Venu Govindaraju (State University of New York Buffalo) Nalini Ratha (IBM T. J. Watson Research Center) Vishal Patel (Rutgers University) Ajay Kumar (Hong Kong Polytechnical University) Saket Anand (IIIT-D) Angshul Majumdar (IIIT-D) Richa Singh (IIIT-D) Mayank Vatsa (IIIT-D) http://ieee-biometrics.org/isba2017/ -- Abhinav Dhall, PhD (ANU) Assistant Professor (c), Indian Institute of Technology Ropar -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From aurel at ee.columbia.edu Tue Dec 20 16:04:50 2016 From: aurel at ee.columbia.edu (Aurel A. Lazar) Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2016 16:04:50 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: The Fruit Fly Brain Observatory (FFBO) Message-ID: <563C88DA-A354-4061-84E4-9CA53DAAAD7A@ee.columbia.edu> We would like to announce that we have released a unique open source platform for investigating fruit fly brain function, in both healthy and diseased brains. Our early version of the FFBO is at: http://fruitflybrain.org The Fruit Fly Brain Observatory (i) integrates within a single database, genetic, anatomical, neurophysiological data with computational models. It provides location, morphology, connectivity and biophysical properties of every neuron, (ii) is equipped with powerful executable tools for circuit generation, numerical simulation and user-friendly query and visualization, (iii) automatically generates models of the fly brain that can be simulated efficiently using multiple Graphics Processing Units. There are three main features of the FFBO: NeuroNLP, NeuroGFX and NeuroAPPs. NeuroNLP is natural language user interface for querying the NeuroArch fly brain database. NeuroGFX is a programming interface that automatically translates biological and modeling data into executable code that can be run on a local or cloud-based GPU servers. NeuroAPPs host integrated healthy and diseased models applications of the fruit fly brain. Our project The Fruit Fly Brain Observatory http://fruitflybrain.org is one of six finalists in the Open Science Prize Competition https://www.openscienceprize.org . We are a collaborative effort between Columbia University, National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan, and University of Sheffield, UK. It would be great if you can let people know about the competition and get them to hopefully vote for us at http://event.capconcorp.com/wp/osp/ :-) Aurel http://www.bionet.ee.columbia.edu -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From xfern at eecs.oregonstate.edu Tue Dec 20 17:52:36 2016 From: xfern at eecs.oregonstate.edu (Fern, Xiaoli) Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2016 14:52:36 -0800 Subject: Connectionists: Tenure track position at Oregon State University Message-ID: <45b001d25b13$c22c11e0$468435a0$@eecs.oregonstate.edu> School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Oregon State University invites applications for one or more full-time tenure-track and/or tenured faculty positions in Computer Science. Areas of focus include AI and Machine Learning, Systems and Security, Databases, Software Engineering, and Programming Languages. We are particularly interested in applicants who can contribute to the College of Engineering's signature research areas: precision health, clean energy, resilient infrastructure, and advanced manufacturing. Candidates should hold a Ph.D. in computer science or a closely related discipline by the start date of employment. Appointment is anticipated at the Assistant Professor rank, but candidates with exceptional qualifications may be considered for appointment at the rank of Associate Professor or Professor. Applicants should demonstrate a strong commitment and capacity to initiate new funded research as well as to expand, complement, and collaborate with existing research programs in the OSU College of Engineering and beyond. Further, applicants should demonstrate a strong commitment to graduate and undergraduate teaching, including developing new courses related to their research expertise. Oregon State is located in Corvallis, at the heart of Oregon's Willamette Valley. Surrounded by forests and mountains, Corvallis combines the amenities of a college town with ample opportunity for outdoor recreation and fresh local food. Portland, the Cascade mountain range, and the Oregon Coast are all within easy reach. To review the posting and apply, go to: http://jobs.oregonstate.edu/postings/33880 The position is open until filled. To be assured full consideration, applications should be received by December 31, 2016. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From alessandro at idsia.ch Wed Dec 21 03:37:26 2016 From: alessandro at idsia.ch (Alessandro Antonucci) Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2016 09:37:26 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: [ECSQARU 2017] Second Call for Papers Message-ID: The Fourteenth European Conference on Symbolic and Quantitative Approaches to Reasoning with Uncertainty SECOND CALL FOR PAPERS http://ecsqaru.idsia.ch The biennial ECSQARU conferences constitute a major forum for advances in the theory and practice of reasoning under uncertainty. Contributions come from researchers interested in advancing the scientific knowledge and from practitioners using uncertainty techniques in real-world applications. The scope of the ECSQARU conferences encompasses fundamental issues, representation, inference, learning, and decision making in qualitative and numeric uncertainty paradigms. Previous ECSQARU events have been held in Marseille (1991), Granada (1993), Fribourg (1995), Bonn (1997), London (1999), Toulouse (2001), Aalborg (2003), Barcelona (2005), Hammamet (2007), Verona (2009), Belfast (2011), Utrecht (2013), and Compi?gne (2015). ECSQARU 2017 will be co-located with ISIPTA '17, the Tenth International Symposium on Imprecise Probability: Theories and Applications. The joint event will be held in Lugano (Switzerland), on July 10-14, 2017. ::: SCOPE ::: For ECSQARU 2017 we invite submissions of conference papers on topics which include but are not limited to: - Algorithms for uncertain inference - Applications of uncertain systems - Argumentation systems - Automated planning and acting under uncertainty - Belief functions - Belief revision & merging - Classification & clustering - Decision theory & decision graphs - Default reasoning - Description logics with uncertainty - Foundations of reasoning under uncertainty - Fuzzy sets & fuzzy logic - Game theory - Imprecise probabilities - Inconsistency handling - Information fusion - Learning for uncertainty formalisms - Logics for reasoning under uncertainty - Markov decision processes - Possibility theory & possibilistic logic - Preferences - Probabilistic graphical models - Probabilistic logics - Qualitative uncertainty models - Rough sets - Uncertainty & data ::: INVITED SPEAKERS ::: We are delighted of having the following invited speakers: - Leila Amgoud (IRIT, France) - Alessio Benavoli (IDSIA, Switzerland) - Jim Berger (Duke University, USA) - Didier Dubois (IRIT, France) - Eyke H?llermeier (Paderborn University, Germany) ::: PROCEEDINGS AND SUBMISSIONS ::: In accordance with the previous conferences, the proceedings of ECSQARU 2015 will be published in the Springer Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence series. Authors are requested to prepare their conference papers in the LNCS/LNAI format. Submitted papers will be evaluated by peer reviews based on originality, significance, technical soundness, and clarity of exposition. Authors of accepted papers are expected to attend the conference to present their work. The instructions for submission and the author kit are available here: http://ecsqaru.idsia.ch/submissions-ecsqaru/ ::: IMPORTANT DATES ::: - Tuesday, February 21, 2017: Paper submission deadline - Tuesday, April 18, 2017: Author notification - Friday, April 28, 2017: Camera-ready copy due ::: IJAR SPECIAL ISSUE ::: Authors of selected papers will be invited to submit an extended version of their work to a special issue of the International Journal of Approximate Reasoning (IJAR, Elsevier). ::: SPRINGER YOUNG RESEARCHER AWARD ::: We also invite applications for the Springer Young Researcher Award. The prize, granted by Springer, will be awarded to one young researcher for excellent research in fields related to the ECSQARU scope. The award is open to Master students, PhD students and young post-doc researchers who have received their PhD in 2016 (or 2017). Applicants should have submitted a paper (not necessarily as first authors) to ECSQARU 2017. Applications should be received by the paper submission deadline (February 21, 2017). _________________________________ Alessandro Antonucci IDSIA Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence Via Cantonale (Galleria 2) CH-6928, Manno-Lugano, CH mail: alessandro at idsia.ch skype: alessandro.antonucci tel: +41 916108515 web: www.idsia.ch/~alessandro _________________________________ From c.clopath at imperial.ac.uk Wed Dec 21 09:18:58 2016 From: c.clopath at imperial.ac.uk (Claudia Clopath) Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2016 14:18:58 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Faculty position at the interface between Neuroscience and Engineering, Imperial College London Message-ID: The Department of Bioengineering at Imperial College London is recruiting at the faculty level (equivalent to Assistant or Associate Professor) at the interface between Neuroscience and Engineering in the broad sense (e.g. developing experimental techniques, new technology, data analysis techniques, modelling tools for Neuroscience, neural-inspired engineering/computer science etc). More details here: http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/science/jobs/598515-lecturers-senior- lecturers-readers-open-call Deadline: Jan 15th Best, Claudia Clopath http://www.bg.ic.ac.uk/research/c.clopath/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mosb at robots.ox.ac.uk Wed Dec 21 08:22:43 2016 From: mosb at robots.ox.ac.uk (Michael A Osborne) Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2016 13:22:43 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Two postdoc jobs in machine learning at the University of Oxford, deadline 5 Jan Message-ID: Looking for new opportunities for the new year? Have a few loose ends over the holiday period? Why not apply for two post-doc opportunities in the University of Oxford? Best Mike __________________________________ Michael A Osborne Dyson Associate Professor in Machine Learning, Engineering Science Co-Director, Oxford Martin Programme on Technology and Employment Faculty Member, Oxford-Man Institute of Quantitative Finance Official Fellow, Exeter College University of Oxford +44 (0)1865 616622 http://www.robots.ox.ac.uk/~mosb http://twitter.com/maosbot ## Postdoctoral Research Assistant in Machine Learning ### Department of Engineering Science, Oxford *Grade 7: ?30,738 - ?37,768 p.a.* More details and applications here: https://is.gd/6PKtaR. The closing date for applications is **12.00 midday on 5th January 2017.** We are seeking a full-time Postdoctoral Research Assistant to join the machine learning research group at the Department of Engineering Science (central Oxford). The post is fixed-term to 31 May 2018. The post will involve work on two projects (sequentially): the first funded by Pearson and Nesta (until 28 February 2017) and the second by the Health Foundation (thereafter). Your role in both projects is to develop novel probabilistic machine learning algorithms for economic data characterising the future of employment. The first project aims to shed light on the mix of skills and competencies that will be required for the types of jobs that the US and UK economies will need in 15 years? time, and has been described in blog posts from [Pearson](http://blog.pearson.com/learning-needs-a-plan-for-the-revolution-we-can-already-glimpse/) and [Nesta](http://www.nesta.org.uk/blog/employment-2030-skills-competencies-and-implications-learning), and in an article from [Quartz](http://qz.com/749629/what-skills-will-human-workers-need-when-robots-take-over-new-research-will-let-the-machines-decide/). The second project examines automation and computerisation in UK primary healthcare delivery; the project?s website is [here](http://healthautomation.oii.ox.ac.uk). You should possess a good first degree in Engineering, Computer Science, Mathematics, Statistics, Economics or similar, with specialisation in probabilistic models and have or are about to complete a PhD in a relevant area. You will be required to upload a covering letter/supporting statement, including a brief statement of research interests (describing how past experience and future plans fit with the advertised position), CV and the details of two referees as part of your online application. Informal enquiries may be addressed to Prof Michael Osborne (email: mosb at robots.ox.ac.uk). The department holds an Athena Swan Bronze award, highlighting its commitment to promoting women in Science, Engineering and Technology. ## Postdoctoral Research Assistant in Machine Learning by Bayesian Optimisation for Experimental Research in Quantum Nanodevices ### Department of Materials, Parks Road, Oxford *Grade 7: Salary in the range ?30,738 - ?34,576 p.a.* More details and applications here: https://is.gd/mXuMDF. The closing date for applications is **12.00 midday on 5th January 2017.** We are seeking to appoint a Postdoctoral Research Assistant whose aim will be to harness Machine Learning techniques for the process of scientific discovery. Duties will include development and application of Bayesian Optimisation for measurements of single-molecule devices, and training them on simulated experimental data. The post is available for up to 3 years and is under the supervision of Professor Andrew Briggs. The project's overarching aim is to identify properties of molecular systems that are desirable in future information processing, especially lower power switching to minimise energy costs (and consequent environmental impact). You will engage and work collaboratively with others involved in the programme including Professor Michael Osborne, Department of Engineering Science, who will supervise the development of the machine learning methods. You will have a good first degree and a completed doctorate (or nearly completed) in a relevant discipline. You will have expertise and experience in software engineering, along with demonstrated expertise in model-based machine learning. The Department of Materials is actively promoting the provision of a family friendly working environment and together with the University of Oxford recognises the demands of work/life balance. Therefore for this project we encourage applications from candidates who wish either to hold these positions on a full-time, or part-time basis or need flexibility in their working hours and will discuss these opportunities with shortlisted applicants at interview. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From c.clopath at imperial.ac.uk Wed Dec 21 09:19:52 2016 From: c.clopath at imperial.ac.uk (Claudia Clopath) Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2016 14:19:52 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: PhD position in Computational/Mathematical Neuroscience in London Message-ID: The Centre for Neurotechnology at Imperial College London, in the lab of Claudia Clopath and Mauricio Barahona, is looking for a talented PhD student interested in working in the field of computational/mathematical neuroscience. The perfect candidate has a strong mathematical, physical or engineering background (or equivalent), and a keen interest in biological and neural systems. Demonstrated programming skills are a plus. Candidates should be EU nationals. -----------------Research topic: ----------------- The complex processing and behavioural capabilities of the brain are directly linked to the fact that neurons exhibit rich collective network dynamics. This dynamics emerges from the highly enmeshed and recurrent, yet structured, connectivity between neurons. Yet, it is poorly understood how the topology and connectivity of the network relate to the emerging dynamics. In this project, we will develop novel theoretical and computational approaches for neuroscience involving a tight interaction between state-of-the-art mathematical tools (graph theory, dynamical systems, stochastic processes, dimensionality reduction) in close connection with relevant data, models, and computer simulations of plastic neural networks. ----------------- The supervision: ----------------- The candidate will be co-supervised in the lab of Claudia Clopath in the Bioengineering Department (http://www.bg.ic.ac.uk/research/c.clopath/) and in the lab of Mauricio Barahona in the Mathematics Department ( https://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/m.barahona). Imperial College London is the 3rd ranked university in Europe, in the top 10 worldwide, and is located in the city centre of London. ----------------- More information and how to apply: ----------------- Candidates should apply here: http://www.imperial.ac.uk/neurotechnology/cdt/projects/plastic_spiking/ The deadline is 31st of January -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From heidi at stat.cmu.edu Wed Dec 21 11:24:26 2016 From: heidi at stat.cmu.edu (Heidi Rhodes Sestrich) Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2016 16:24:26 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: SAND8, May 31 - June 2, 2017 Message-ID: The eighth international workshop on Statistical Analysis of Neural Data (SAND8) will take place May 31-June 2, 2017, in Pittsburgh, PA. Partial travel support is available. SAND8 will begin with a morning-long panel discussion on ?Emerging Challenges of Brain Science Data,? and will end with several talks that connect statistical analysis to mathematical modeling. In between there will be keynote talks by senior investigators and shorter presentations by junior investigators, the latter selected on a competitive basis. There will also be a poster session, to which all participants are invited to contribute. Talks and posters may involve new methodology, investigation of existing methods, or application of state-of-the-art analytical techniques. In addition, there will be a lunchtime discussion devoted to opportunities and challenges for women in computational neuroscience. Confirmed keynote lecturers, panelists, and discussants include the following: Genevera Allen, Rice; Marlene Behrmann, CMU; Emery Brown, MIT/Harvard Medical School; Elizabeth Buffalo, U. Washington; Anne Churchland, Cold Spring Harbor; Peter Dayan, Gatsby; Alain Destexhe, CNRS, France; Adrienne Fairhall, U. Washington; Sonja Grun, Julich Institute, Germany; Alon Korngreen, Bar-Ilan, Israel; Mark Kramer, Boston U.; Andrew Leifer, Princeton; Brian Litt, Penn; Katherine Nagal, NYU; Jonathan Pillow, Princeton; Sridevi Sarma, Johns Hopkins; Aarti Singh, CMU; Andreas Tolias, Baylor; Timothy Verstynen, CMU. Any young investigator interested in presenting their work as a talk should submit an abstract by MARCH 1. Requests for travel support are due MARCH 15. Please see our website: http://sand.stat.cmu.edu This workshop series is concerned with analysis of neural data of all kinds, ranging from anatomy to electrophysiology, to neuroimaging. It aims to define important problems in neuronal data analysis and useful strategies for attacking them; foster communication between experimental neuroscientists and those trained in statistical and computational methods encourage young researchers, including graduate students, to present their work; and expose young researchers to important challenges and opportunities in this interdisciplinary domain, while providing a small meeting atmosphere to facilitate the interaction of young researchers with senior colleagues. We are especially interested in attracting to this workshop people wishing to learn more about challenges in the analysis of neural data who are females, under-represented minorities, or persons with disabilities. The organizers are Emery Brown, Elizabeth Buffalo, Rob Kass, Liam Paninski, Sri Sarma and Jonathan Victor. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cgf at isep.ipp.pt Wed Dec 21 15:54:39 2016 From: cgf at isep.ipp.pt (Carlos Ferreira) Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2016 20:54:39 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Deadline Extended (Jan 5): Workshop on Data Mining for Oil & Gas Message-ID: Workshop on Data Mining for Oil & Gas The Westin Galeria Houston, Texas, USA http://dm4og.inesctec.pt ** SUBMISSION DEADLINE EXTENDED: January 5, 2017** **Call for Papers** The process of exploring and exploiting Oil and Gas (O&G) generates a lot of data that can bring more efficiency to the industry. Although there are several examples of research papers on data mining and soft computing applications in the O&G related sciences, the opportunities for using data mining techniques in the "digital oil-field" remain largely unexplored or uncharted. The significant challenges posed by this complex and economically vital field justify a meeting of data scientists that are willing to share their experience and knowledge. Hosted at SIAM?s International Conference on Data Mining (SDM 2017), this workshop aims at bringing together researchers and practitioners from data science, data mining, forecasting, geophysics, petrochemistry, marine and petroleum geology, applied mathematics, and other disciplines, to explore the utilization of data mining techniques to develop intelligent solutions for O&G related modeling and optimization problems. The **topics of interest** include, but are not limited to: * the accurate positioning of structures (salt and overthrust), * the characterization of laminated sands and shales, * prediction and evaluation of pressure in reservoirs, * fault detection and classification, * facies recognition, * exploration in difficult areas, * accurate depth imaging, * fluid/permeability prediction, * identification and classification of fractures, * uncertainty quantification, * environmental issues. All submitted papers will go through a rigorous double-blind peer review process, and the workshop proceedings will be published in electronic format, with CEUR-WS (indexed by DBLP, as well as Scopus). Full papers should have between 5 and 15 pages, including references. Only original papers, i.e., that have not been published in an earlier workshop or conference, will be accepted. Extended abstracts (between 2 and 4 pages) are also accepted for work in progress, early projects, software demos, industrial applications, or any relevant issue more appropriately addressed in this format. Accepted full papers will be given approximately 20 minutes for presentation, plus time for discussion. Selected extended abstracts will have approximately 10 minutes for presentation, plus time for discussion. In order to produce the PDF, we provide a LaTex template, and an example with author guidelines, at goo.gl/nom2KL. The manuscripts must be submitted through the DM4OG EasyChair submissions site at https://goo.gl/1kUqXr. **Important Dates** Submission deadline: December 23, 2016 *Extended Submission Deadline*: January 5, 2017 Author Notification: January 25, 2017 SDM Conference: April 27-29, 2017 SDM 2017 homepage: http://www.siam.org/meetings/sdm17/ **Organizing Committee** Al?pio Jorge, University of Porto, Portugal German Larrazabal, Repsol USA, Houston, Texas, USA Pablo Guillen, University of Houston, Texas, USA Rui L. Lopes, INESC TEC, Porto, Portugal *** Carlos Ferreira ISEP | Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto Rua Dr. Ant?nio Bernardino de Almeida, 431 4249-015 Porto - PORTUGAL tel. +351 228 340 500 | fax +351 228 321 159 mail at isep.ipp.pt | www.isep.ipp.pt From erik at oist.jp Thu Dec 22 02:59:59 2016 From: erik at oist.jp (Erik De Schutter) Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2016 07:59:59 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Announcing Okinawa/OIST Computational Neuroscience Course 2017 Message-ID: <48299F1E-BF25-4033-AE23-C245572B4EB7@oist.jp> OKINAWA/OIST COMPUTATIONAL NEUROSCIENCE COURSE 2017 Methods, Neurons, Networks and Behaviors June 26 to July 13, 2017 Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University, Japan https://groups.oist.jp/ocnc The aim of the Okinawa/OIST Computational Neuroscience Course is to provide opportunities for young researchers with theoretical backgrounds to learn the latest advances in neuroscience, and for those with experimental backgrounds to have hands-on experience in computational modeling. We invite graduate students and postgraduate researchers to participate in the course, held from June 26th through July 13th, 2017 at an oceanfront seminar house of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University. Applications are through the course web page (https://groups.oist.jp/ocnc) only; January 3 - February 5, 2017. Applicants will receive confirmation of acceptance in March. Like in preceding years, OCNC will be a comprehensive three-week course covering single neurons, networks, and behaviors with ample time for student projects. The first week will focus exclusively on methods with hands-on tutorials during the afternoons, while the second and third weeks will have lectures by international experts. The course has a strong hands-on component based on student proposed modeling or data analysis projects, which are further refined with the help of a dedicated tutor. Applicants are required to propose their project at the time of application. There is no tuition fee. The sponsor will provide lodging and meals during the course and may support travel for those without funding. We hope that this course will be a good opportunity for theoretical and experimental neuroscientists to meet each other and to explore the attractive nature and culture of Okinawa, the southernmost island prefecture of Japan. Invited faculty: ? Upinder Bhalla (NCBS, India) ? Erik De Schutter (OIST) ? Kenji Doya (OIST) ? Bard Ermentrout (University of Pittsburgh, USA) ? Ila Fiete (University of Texas Austin, USA) ? Sonja Gr?n (Research Centre J?lich, Germany) ? Shin Ishii (Kyoto University, Japan) ? Jason Kerr (MPI Bonn, Germany) ? Bernd Kuhn (OIST) ? Subkin Lim (NYU Shanghai, China) ? Michele Migliore (Institute of Biophysics, Italy) ? David Redish (University of Minnesota, USA) ? ?Reza Shadmehr (Johns Hopkins University, USA) ? Greg Stephens (OIST) ? Yoko Yazaki-Sugiyama (OIST) ? 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Name: smime.p7s Type: application/pkcs7-signature Size: 3682 bytes Desc: not available URL: From graduateprograms at bccn-berlin.de Wed Dec 21 19:14:41 2016 From: graduateprograms at bccn-berlin.de (Robert Martin) Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2016 01:14:41 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: *Graduate Programs in Computational Neuroscience* in Berlin; MSc and PhD; deadline March 15, 2017, deadline for PhD scholarships Jan 15, 2017 Message-ID: <064ba7e5-ac78-5bd2-0d1f-fdd2683b33d2@bccn-berlin.de> [Apologies for cross-posting] *Doctoral* and *Master Program* "Computational Neuroscience" at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin in Berlin, Germany Application deadline: *March 15, 2017* PhD Scholarships: *January 15, 2017* Begin of courses: Sept/Oct 2017 Internet: www.computational-neuroscience-berlin.de _Doctoral Program_ The Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin (BCCN Berlin, https://www.bccn-berlin.de/) and the Research Training Group "Sensory Computation in Neural Systems" (GRK 1589/2, https://www.eecs.tu-berlin.de/grk_15891/) invite applications for their PhD program. The BCCN Berlin is a leading research center dedicated to the theoretical study of neural processing and the *scientific program* of the research training group combines techniques and concepts from machine learning, computational neuroscience, and systems neurobiology in order to specifically address ensory computation. Doctoral candidates will work on interdisciplinary projects investigating the mechanisms of neural computation, address the processes underlying perception on different scales and different levels of abstraction, and develop new theories of computation hand in hand with well-controlled experiments in order to put functional hypotheses to the test. The training group offers structured supervision complemented by a teaching and training program. Each student will be supervised by two investigators with complementary expertise and will be associated with the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin. Candidates are expected to hold a Masters degree (or equivalent) in a relevant subject (e.g., neuroscience, cognitive science, computer science, physics, mathematics, etc.) and have the required advanced mathematical background. _Master's Program_ The tuition-free Master program in Computational Neuroscience offers *15 places* per year, has a duration of 2 years and is fully taught in English. The *curriculum* is subdivided into ten modules, whose content includes theoretical neuroscience, programming, machine learning, cognitive neuroscience, acquisition, modelling, and computational analysis of neural data, with a strong focus on a complementary theoretical and experimental training. Three lab rotations and a Master's thesis are accomplished in the second year. The aim of the program is to provide the students with an interdisciplinary education and an early contact to the neurocomputational research environment. *Requirements* BSc or equivalent degree in a relevant subject (typically in the natural sciences, in an engineering discipline, in cognitive science, or in mathematics), certificate of English proficiency, proof of sufficient mathematical knowledge (at least 24 ECTS credit points). _Neurosciences in Berlin_ _International PhD Fellowships_ The BCCN Berlin is part of the newly created Einstein Center for Neurosciences Berlin (ECN). The ECN was initiated by the joint research networks listed below to harmonize existing training programs in the neurosciences in Berlin, with the goal of strengthening an already strong research landscape and consolidating a PhD education equal to the highest international standards. The ECN invites applications for *scholarships* for its PhD program starting in Fall 2017. Deadline for application is *January 15* 2017. ECN member institutions are: The Berlin School of Mind and Brain The Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin The Center for Stroke Research Berlin The Cluster of Excellence NeuroCure The ECN member institutions promote cutting-edge neuroscientific research across a wide range of different disciplines and approaches. The ECN provides the umbrella structure that specifically fosters interdisciplinary, collaborative research by facilitating cooperation between these institutions, and by promoting interaction on all levels. With around 100 internationally recognized research groups, the ECN offers outstanding interdisciplinary training and research opportunities for national and international scientists, with research spanning from synapse to behavior, molecule to disease, and brain to mind. How to apply: Visit http://www.ecn-berlin.de/ Closing date for applications is January 15, 2017. The final interview will take place in March 2017. The ECN is an inter-institutional research network funded by Einstein Foundation Berlin and jointly supported by the Charit? - Universit?tsmedizin Berlin, the Freie Universit?t Berlin, the Humboldt-Universit?t zu Berlin and the Technische Universit?t Berlin, as well as the non-university partners Max Delbr?ck Center for Molecular Medicine and Leibniz-Institut f?r Molekulare Pharmakologie. ~~~ _For more information_ ... ... come and visit us at the BCCN Berlin: https://www.bccn-berlin.de/Home/Contact/How_to_reach/ ... or browse: www.computational-neuroscience-berlin.de ... or e-mail: graduateprograms at bccn-berlin.de . Best regards, Robert Martin -- Robert Martin, PhD Teaching Coordinator Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Humboldt-Universitaet zu Berlin Philippstr. 13 House 6; 10115 Berlin; Germany Phone/Fax +49 (0)30 2093 6773/6771 http://www.computational-neuroscience-berlin.de GRK 1589/1, Sensory Computation in Neural Systems Technische Universitaet Berlin Sekretariat MAR 5-6; Marchstr. 23; 10587 Berlin Phone/Fax +49 (0)30 314 72006/73121 http://www.eecs.tu-berlin.de/grk_15891/ From aw665 at cam.ac.uk Thu Dec 22 04:04:40 2016 From: aw665 at cam.ac.uk (Adrian Weller) Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2016 04:04:40 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: =?utf-8?q?*deadline_Jan_2*_Postdoc_opportunity_in?= =?utf-8?q?_Cambridge_=28UK=29_to_study_Trust=09and_Transparency_of_AI?= Message-ID: Please forward to anyone who may have interest. *Application deadline is Jan 2.* Postdoc position to study Trust and Transparency aspects of Artificial Intelligence University of Cambridge, UK The Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence (CFI; http://lcfi.ac.uk/) and the Machine Learning Group (http://mlg.eng.cam.ac.uk ) at the University of Cambridge invite applications for a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the study of trust and transparency in Artificial Intelligence (AI). The appointment will be for 3 years. CFI is a new, highly interdisciplinary research centre addressing the challenges and opportunities posed by artificial intelligence (AI). Funded by the Leverhulme Trust, CFI is based at the University of Cambridge, with partners in the University of Oxford, Imperial College London, and UC Berkeley, and close links with industry. This is a new Research Associate post within CFI?s Trust and Transparency project, based in central Cambridge. The post-holder will be a member of both CFI, and the Machine Learning Group, run by Prof Zoubin Ghahramani, in the Department of Engineering. This project, led by Dr Adrian Weller and involving partners at Imperial College, aims to develop processes to ensure that AI systems are transparent, reliable and trustworthy. Deadline for applications is 2 January 2017. Please see http://www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/12209/ for further details. The University values diversity and is committed to equality of opportunity. The University has a responsibility to ensure that all employees are eligible to live and work in the UK. ------------------------------ Adrian Weller From smartstart at fz-juelich.de Thu Dec 22 05:49:11 2016 From: smartstart at fz-juelich.de (Smart Start Coordination Office) Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2016 11:49:11 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Call for applications: SMART START - a joint training program in Computational Neuroscience for young researchers Message-ID: <7dcde197-9231-eb4a-3bd2-00df2982c97c@fz-juelich.de> Call for applications Ready for a SMARTSTART into Computational Neuroscience? We invite first and second-year Master students with a background in related fields to apply to our joint training program SMARTSTART. The program aims at complementing previous studies with concepts, theories and techniques of Computational Neuroscience. SMARTSTART consists of two programs. Both of them last one year each and take place at numerous locations of the Bernstein Network and further locations throughout Germany. SMARTSTART 1 provides financial support to then second-year Master students, allowing them to attend supplementary courses and training visits at participating institutions. Students will receive an experienced faculty mentor who will advise and guide them at this educational stage. SMARTSTART 2 provides fully funded positions for pre-PhD students. At the start of the program, these students will have already obtained their Master?s degree and are in the process of selecting a PhD project. SMARTSTART 2 allows them to elaborate their own PhD proposal as a collaborative project between two labs. This comprises exchange visits as well as voluntary attendance of lectures and courses offered by participating institutions. Both SMARTSTART programs will commence the second round in the winter term 2017/18. The Deadline for application is Tuesday, February 28, 2017. More information can be found on our website: www.smartstart-compneuro.de Best regards, Kathrin Hebert -- Coordination Office Smart Start - Joint Training Program in Computational Neuroscience Bernstein Network Computational Neuroscience | Bernstein Coordination Site (BCOS) Branch Office of the Forschungszentrum J?lich at the University of Freiburg Hansastr. 9A | 79104 Freiburg, Germany phone: (+49) 0761 203 9593 mail: smartstart at fz-juelich.de web: www.nncn.de Twitter: NNCN_Germany YouTube: Bernstein TV Facebook: Bernstein Network Computational Neuroscience, Germany LinkedIn: Bernstein Network Computational Neuroscience, Germany ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Forschungszentrum Juelich GmbH 52425 Juelich Sitz der Gesellschaft: Juelich Eingetragen im Handelsregister des Amtsgerichts Dueren Nr. HR B 3498 Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats: MinDir Dr. Karl Eugen Huthmacher Geschaeftsfuehrung: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Wolfgang Marquardt (Vorsitzender), Karsten Beneke (stellv. Vorsitzender), Prof. Dr.-Ing. Harald Bolt, Prof. Dr. Sebastian M. Schmidt ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From M.Gillies at gold.ac.uk Thu Dec 22 10:33:21 2016 From: M.Gillies at gold.ac.uk (Marco Gillies) Date: Thu, 22 Dec 2016 15:33:21 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: MOCO 2017 Call for Doctoral Symposium Papers Message-ID: <56CA765E-9020-48CC-8BC0-B94F88FA4749@campus.goldsmiths.ac.uk> MOCO 2017 Call for Doctoral Symposium Papers International Conference on Movement and Computing (MOCO17) > Intersecting Art, Meaning, Cognition, Technology 28-30th June, London UK Goldsmiths University of London http://moco17.movementcomputing.org We would like to invite submissions for doctoral papers for the 4th International Conference on Movement and Computing (MOCO) which is to be held in London. Doctoral papers are an opportunity for students to present their work in progress on their doctorate and receive feedback from experts in the field. Papers will have an oral presentation in a dedicated doctoral symposium and a poster presentation at the main conference. We encourage students to submit a paper even if they are early in their doctoral work. MOCO is an interdisciplinary conference that explores the use of computational technology to support and understand human movement practice (e.g. computational analysis), as well as movement as a means of interacting with computers (e.g. movement interfaces). This requires a wide range of computational tasks including modeling, representation, segmentation, recognition, classification, or generation of movement information but also an interdisciplinary understanding of movement that ranges from biomechanics to embodied cognition and the phenomenology of bodily experience. We therefore invite submissions from a wide range of disciplines including (but not limited to): Human-Computer Interaction, Psychology, Dance, Artificial Intelligence, Neuroscience, Sports Science, Machine Learning, Cognitive Science, Visual Arts, Robotics, Philosophy, Anthropology, Music, Affective Computing, Games, Healthcare and Animation. Submission Submissions will be by a short paper (4 pages maximum), and supporting media (video, sound or images) which will give details of the practical and technical requirements for putting on the work (this is very important to ensure that we can accommodate the work within the resources of our conference). All submissions should be in pdf format and should use the ACM proceedings format: http://www.acm.org/publications/article-templates/proceedings-template.html/ Online submission: All submissions must be made through EasyChair https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=moco2017 All submissions must be anonymous and will be peer-reviewed. The MOCO proceedings will be indexed and published in the ACM digital library. Important Dates Submission deadline: 1st March 2017 Notification: 23 March 2017 Camera ready papers: 30 April 2017 Contact If you have any questions please contact us on moco2017 at easychair.org Committee Conference Chair Marco Gillies, Goldsmiths Organising Committee Kirk Woolford, University of Surrey Sarah Whatley, Coventry University Adam Parkinson, Goldsmiths Frederic Fol Leymarie, Goldsmiths Phoenix Perry, Goldsmiths Simon Katan, Goldsmiths Perla Maiolino, Goldsmiths Local organisers Kiona Niehaus, Goldsmiths Nicky Donald, Goldsmiths Phoenix Fry, Goldsmiths Steering Committee Fr?d?ric Bevilacqua, IRCAM Sarah Fdili Alaoui, LRI-Universit? Paris-Sud 11 Jules Fran?oise, Simon Fraser University Philippe Pasquier, Simon Fraser University Thecla Schiphorst, Simon Fraser University From annalisa at informatik.uni-mannheim.de Fri Dec 23 03:58:01 2016 From: annalisa at informatik.uni-mannheim.de (Anna Lisa Gentile) Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2016 09:58:01 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Happy holidays from ISWC 2017 - important dates Message-ID: * 16th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2017) Vienna, Austria, from October 21-25, 2017 Website:http://iswc2017.semanticweb.orgFacebook:https://www.facebook.com/groups/113652365383847Twitter: @iswc2017 (https://twitter.com/ISWC2017) While wishing you a very merry holiday season, we would like to add some important dates to your calendar for the new year :) Get ready for the 16th International Semantic Web Conference (ISWC 2017)!ISWC is the premier venue for presenting innovative systems and research results related to the Semantic Web and Linked Data, attracting a large number of high quality submissions every year and participants from both industry and academia. ISWC brings together researchers from different areas, such as artificial intelligence, databases, natural language processing, information systems, human computer interaction, information retrieval, web science, etc., who investigate, develop and use novel methods and technologies for accessing, interpreting and using information on the Web in a more effective way. Important Dates========================================== Workshop & Tutorial proposals dueMarch 10, 2017 Workshop & Tutorial proposals notifications sentMarch 31, 2017 Abstracts due (Research, Application, Resource tracks)May 8, 2017 Submissions due (Research, Application, Resource tracks)May 15, 2017 Doctoral Consortium submissions dueMay 25, 2017 Registration startsJune 1, 2017 Doctoral Consortium notifications sentJune 30, 2017 Author rebuttal period (Research, Application, Resource tracks)June 23-27, 2017 Notifications sent (Research, Application, Resource tracks)July 14, 2017 Camera-ready papers for Doctoral Consortium dueJuly 18, 2017 Workshop paper submissions dueJuly 21, 2017 Poster & Demo submissions dueJuly 27, 2017 Camera-ready papers due (Research, Application, Resource tracks)July 28, 2017 Workshop paper notifications sentAugust 24, 2017 Poster & Demo notifications sentAugust 24, 2017 Student activity applications dueAugust 31, 2017 Camera-ready copies for Poster & Demo dueSeptember 4, 2017 The last day for early registrationsSeptember 8, 2017 Workshops & TutorialsOctober 21 & 22, 2017 ConferenceOctober 23, 24 & 25, 2017 Happy holidays!The ISWC Organising Committee (http://iswc2017.semanticweb.org/organization/)* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From m.plumbley at surrey.ac.uk Fri Dec 23 09:51:08 2016 From: m.plumbley at surrey.ac.uk (m.plumbley at surrey.ac.uk) Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2016 14:51:08 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: Job: Research Fellow (Research Software Developer) in Musical Audio Repurposing using Source Separation Message-ID: Dear Connectionists, Please feel free to forward the following job information to anyone who may be interested. This may be of particular interest for people working on machine learning methods for source separation. Apologies for cross-posting. Best wishes, Mark Plumbley ---- Research Fellow (Research Software Developer) in Musical Audio Repurposing using Source Separation http://jobs.surrey.ac.uk/095616 University of Surrey, Centre for Vision Speech and Signal Processing (CVSSP) Salary: GBP 31,076 to GBP 38,183 per annum Closing Date: 31 January 2017 Reference: 095616 Applications are invited for a Research Fellow (Research Software Developer) to work full-time on an EPSRC funded project "Musical Audio Repurposing using Source Separation" from 1 March 2017 to 31 January 2018. This project is tackling the challenge of high quality musical audio repurposing, focussing on soloing, desoloing, remixing and upmixing. The project is investigating new methods for musical audio source separation, in parallel with investigating new perceptual evaluation measures for audio source separation. The candidate will be responsible for developing an extensible open-source research software framework, in conjunction with other researchers in the project. They will also develop user software and demonstrators for audio repurposing, such as upmixers for and remixers, and will work with a specialist app developer to create a demonstrator remixing app. The candidate will be working as part of a team, with two other researchers focussing on audio source separation and perceptual evaluation methods. The successful applicant is expected to have excellent mathematical and programming skills, as well as either a Masters degree in electronic engineering, computer science or related subject, or equivalent professional experience. They will have demonstrable experience in software development relevant to audio and music signal processing, in topics such as digital signal processing, acoustics, binaural audio, multichannel audio, audio coding, speech processing, and/or music information retrieval. Significant experience of development in both Python and Matlab as well as C/C++ is desirable. Research experience in audio signal processing or experience of working closely with audio signal processing researchers is also desirable. The project is led by Prof Mark Plumbley in the Machine Audition Lab of the Centre for Vision Speech and Signal Processing (CVSSP), and in collaboration with the Institute of Sound Recording (IoSR). CVSSP is one of the largest groups of its type in the UK, with over 120 active researchers working in the areas of vision, image processing, and audio, and a grant portfolio of over ?12M. The Centre has state-of-the-art acoustic capture and analysis facilities enabling research into audio source separation, music transcription and spatial audio, and video and audio capture facilities supporting research in real-time video and audio processing and visualisation. The IoSR is a leading centre for research in psychoacoustic engineering, as well as being home to the Tonmeister undergraduate degree programme. It has a focused team of 12 researchers, plus several industrial collaborators, and a range of professional facilities of the highest standards, including three recording studios and an ITU-R BS 1116 standard critical listening room. Informal enquires are welcome, to: Prof Mark Plumbley (m.plumbley at surrey.ac.uk). For more information and to apply online, visit http://jobs.surrey.ac.uk/095616 We acknowledge, understand and embrace diversity. -- Prof Mark D Plumbley Professor of Signal Processing Centre for Vision, Speech and Signal Processing (CVSSP) University of Surrey - Celebrating 50 years in Guildford Email: m.plumbley at surrey.ac.uk University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, GU2 7XH, UK From sahidullahmd at gmail.com Fri Dec 23 14:33:23 2016 From: sahidullahmd at gmail.com (Md Sahidullah) Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2016 21:33:23 +0200 Subject: Connectionists: ASVspoof 2017 CHALLENGE: Audio Replay Detection for Automatic Speaker Verification Anti-spoofing Message-ID: [Apologies for cross-postings] =*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=* ASVspoof 2017 CHALLENGE: Audio replay detection for automatic speaker verification anti-spoofing http://www.spoofingchallenge.org/ =*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=* Are you good at machine learning for audio signals? Are you good at discriminating 'fake' signals from authentic ones? Are you looking for new audio processing challenges? Do you work in the domain of speaker recognition? ASVspoof 2017 challenge might be for you! CHALLENGE TASK: Given a short clip of speech audio, determine whether it contains a GENUINE human voice (live recording), or a REPLAY recording (fake). You will be provided a development set containing genuine/replay labeled audio examples, along with further metadata such as speech content and the devices used in the replay recordings. Your task is to develop a system that assigns a single 'liveness' or 'genuineness' score value to new audio samples and to execute that system on a set of test files for which the ground truth is not provided. We provide a Matlab-based reference baseline method to kick-off quickly towards developing your new ideas! For more details, refer to the evaluation plan on the website: http://www.spoofingchallenge.org/ BACKGROUND: The goal of the challenge series is to enhance the security of automatic speaker verification (ASV) systems from being intentionally circumvented using fake recordings, also known as 'spoofing attacks' or 'representation attacks' in the context of biometrics. ASVspoof 2017 is the second edition of a challenge kicked off in 2015, and the new perspective in ASVspoof 2017 are the replay attacks, especially 'unseen' attacks - for instance, containing replay environments, devices, and speakers that might be very different from those in the development data. Despite 'ASV' being in the challenge title, you do NOT require knowledge of automatic speaker verification: the task is a 'standalone' replay audio detection task that can be addressed as a generic acoustic pattern classification problem. We welcome as many new ideas to the problem as possible! SCHEDULE: Development data published: December 23rd, 2016 Evaluation data published: February 10, 2017 Evaluation set scores due: February 24, 2017 Results available: March 3, 2017 Interspeech paper deadline: March 14, 2017 Metadata/keys published: May 2017 Interspeech special session: August 2017 REGISTRATION: Send a free-worded e-mail to asvspoof2017 at cs.uef.fi to register and obtain the dev data. ORGANIZERS: Tomi Kinnunen, University of Eastern Finland, FINLAND Nicholas Evans, Eurecom, FRANCE Junichi Yamagishi, University of Edinburgh, UK Kong Aik Lee, Institute for Infocomm Research, SINGAPORE Md Sahidullah, University of Eastern Finland, FINLAND Massimiliano Todisco, Eurecom, FRANCE Hector Delgado, Eurecom, FRANCE CONTACT: asvspoof2017 at cs.uef.fi -- Dr. Md Sahidullah Post-doctoral researcher School of Computing University of Eastern Finland Joensuu, P.O. Box 111 Finland- 80101 tel. +358-466250731 website: http://cs.joensuu.fi/~sahid/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lynch at csail.mit.edu Fri Dec 23 20:26:24 2016 From: lynch at csail.mit.edu (Nancy Lynch) Date: Fri, 23 Dec 2016 20:26:24 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoc opportunity at MIT Message-ID: <20161223202624.Horde.-YnvJD9SsUYW01cqnvJj3A9@webmail.csail.mit.edu> Dear connectionist list members, Here is a general postdoc ad that you might be interested in: The Theory of Distributed Systems group at MIT will have openings for one or possibly two postdocs starting around Summer, 2017. Our main areas of interest now are: Biological distributed algorithms (insect colonies, brain networks, ...) Wireless network algorithms Distributed graph network algorithms, but in particular those that can tolerate noise, failures, change, etc. Please send a quick note to Nancy Lynch, lynch at csail.mit.edu if you are interested, and follow up soon with your CV, publication list, a short statement describing your research interests, and a list of 3 or so research references. ....... For people reading this list in particular, I expect that you would be most interested in our brain networks research direction (of course). To get an idea of the type of work we are doing in this area, see our new ITCS paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.02084 We use a sort of probabilistic Spiking Neural Network model, define problems formally, and give specific circuits and general lower bounds for solving the problems in terms of the model. We analyze costs in terms of time bounds and network size. The analysis is heavily probabilistic. We are interested in understanding how to compose solutions to simple brain problems to build solutions to more complicated problems. We are interested in analyzing tolerance to noise and uncertainty. I hope this gives you an idea of what the project is like. Nancy Lynch From sp3301 at columbia.edu Sat Dec 24 18:53:34 2016 From: sp3301 at columbia.edu (Sandhya Prabhakaran) Date: Sat, 24 Dec 2016 18:53:34 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: CFP - 13th International Conference on Machine Learning and Data Mining in Pattern Recognition (MLDM 2017) Message-ID: Hi, ** We apologize in advance if you receive multiple copies of this CFP ** ** Kindly help to distribute this CFP to your mailing list ** *4th Call for Papers * 13th International Conference on Machine Learning and Data Mining in Pattern Recognition (*MLDM 2017*) www.mldm.de July 15th - 21st, 2017 New York, USA Chair: Prof. Dr. Petra Perner Institute of Computer Vision and applied Computer Sciences, IBaI Leipzig/Germany Program Committee Sergey Ablameyko Belarus State University, Belarus Michelangelo Ceci Universtiy of Bari, Italy Patrick Bouthemy INRIA VISTA, France Xiaoqing Ding Tsinghua University, China Christoph F. Eick Universtiy of Houston, USA Ana Fred Technical University of Lisboa, Portugal Giorgio Giacinto University of Cagliari, Italy Makato Haraguchi Hokkaido University of Sapporo, Japan Dimitris Karras Chalkis Institute of Technology, Greece Adam Krzyzak Concordia University, Canada Thang V. Pham University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands Linda Shapiro University of Washington, USA Shashank Shekhar VMware Inc., USA Tamas Sziranyi MTA-SZTAKI, Hungary Francis E.H. Tay National University of Singapore, Singapore Alexander Ulanov HP Labs, Russia Zeev Volkovich ORT Braude College of Engineering, Israel Patrick Wang Northeastern University, USA Aim of the Conference ------------------------- The MLDM?2017 conference is the tenth event in a series of Machine Learning and Data Mining meetings, initially organised as international workshops. The aim of MLDM?2017 is to bring together from all over the world researchers dealing with machine learning and data mining, in order to discuss the recent status of the research in the field and to direct its further developments. Basic research papers as well as application papers are welcome. All kinds of applications are welcome, but special preference will be given to multimedia related applications, biomedical applications, and webmining. Paper submissions should be related but not limited to any of the following topics: * association rules * case-based reasoning and learning * classification and interpretation of images, text, video * conceptional learning and clustering * Goodness measures and evaluaion (e.g. false discovery rates) * inductive learning including decision tree and rule induction learning * knowledge extraction from text, video, signals and images * mining gene data bases and biological data bases * mining images, temporal-spatial data, images from remote sensing * mining structural representations such as log files, text documents and HTML documents * mining text documents * organisational learning and evolutional learning * probabilistic information retrieval * Selection bias * Sampling methods * Selection with small samples * similarity measures and learning of similarity * statistical learning and neural net based learning * video mining * visualization and data mining * Applications of Clustering * Aspects of Data Mining * Applications in Medicine * Autoamtic Semantic Annotation of Media Content * Bayesian Models and Methods * Case-Based Reasoning and Associative Memory * Classification and Model Estimation * Content-Based Image Retrieval * Decision Trees * Deviation and Novelty Detection * Feature Grouping, Discretization, Selection and Transformation * Feature Learning * Frequent Pattern Mining * High-Content Analysis of Microscopic Images in Medicine, Biotechnology and Chemistry * Learning and adaptive control * Learning/adaption of recognition and perception * Learning for Handwriting Recognition * Learning in Image Pre-Processing and Segmentation * Learning in process automation * Learning of internal representations and models * Learning of appropriate behaviour * Learning of action patterns * Learning of Ontologies * Learning of Semantic Inferencing Rules * Learning of Visual Ontologies * Learning for robots * Mining Images in Computer Vision * Mining Images and Texture * Mining Motion from Sequence * Neural Methods * Network Analysis and Intrusion Detection * Nonlinear Function Learning and Neural Net Based Learning * Real-Time Event Learning and Detection * Retrieval Methods * Rule Induction and Grammars * Speech Analysis * Statistical and Conceptual Clustering Methods: Basics * Statistical and Evolutionary Learning * Subspace Methods * Support Vector Machines * Symbolic Learning and Neural Networks in Document Processing * Time Series and Sequential Pattern Mining * Mining Social Media * Audio Mining * Cognition and Computer Vision Important Dates ----------------- Deadline for paper submission: January 15, 2017 Notification of acceptance: March 18 , 2017 Submission of camera-ready copy: April 05, 2017 Submission guidelines ------------------------- Authors can submit their papers in long or short version: Please submit the electronic version of your camera-ready paper through the COMMENCE conference management system (http://www.mldm.de/CMS/). If you have any problems with the system please do not hesitate to contact info at mldm.de. Long Papers Long papers must be formatted in the Springer LNCS format. They should have at most 15 pages. Papers will be reviewed by the program committee. Accepted long papers will appear in the proceedings book "Machine Learning and Data Mining in Pattern Recognition" published by Springer Verlag in the LNAI series. Extended versions of selected papers will be published in a special issue of an international journal after the conference. Short Papers Short papers are also welcome and can be used to describe work in progress or project ideas. They should have no more than 5 pages and must be also formatted in Springer LNCS format. Accepted short papers will be presented as posters in the poster session. They will be published in a special poster proceedings book. Papers will be submitted via the online reviewing system. Best Paper Award ---------------------- The best scientific paper is distinguished with a Best Paper Award. A outstanding contribution in the field of Machine Learning and Data Mining for Pattern Recognition will be awarded with the Best Paper Award. There will be three nominations for the Best Paper Award before the conference. All nominee will receive a certificate. The final decision of the Best Paper Award will be made based on the presentation and the discussion. The Best Paper Award will be a certificate and a prize money of 500 Euro for the research team. Tutorials ----------------------------------------- Data Mining Tutorial Prof. Dr. Petra Perner, Institute of Computer Vision and Applied Computer Sciences IBaI, http://www.data-mining-forum.de/t_dm.php Case-Based Reasoning Tutorial Prof. Dr. Petra Perner, Institute of Computer Vision and Applied Computer Sciences IBaI, http://www.data-mining-forum.de/t_cbr.php Intelligent Image Interpreation and Computer Vision in Mediceine, Biotechnology, Chemistry & Food Industry Prof. Dr. Petra Perner, Institute of Computer Vision and Applied Computer Sciences IBaI, http://www.data-mining-forum.de/t_iicv.php Workshops (http://www.data-mining-forum.de/workshops.php) ---------------------------------------------------------------- * Intern. Workshop I-Business to Manufacturing and LifeScience B2ML 2017 * Intern. Workshop on Data Mining in Marketing DMM 2017 * Intern. Workshop Case-Based Reasoning CBR-MD 2017 * Intern. Workshop on Multimedia Forensic Data Analysis MFDA 2017 Exhibition ----------- 16th Industrial Exhibition on Intelligent Data and Image Analysis IEDA 2017 We like to invite you to present your company or publishing house at the Industrial Exhibition ieda 2017 (www.iedaexhibition.de). If you do not with to receive the newsletter, please press here http://ibai-institut-newsletter.de/cgi-bin/mail/manager.cgi? action=delete&email=pperner%40ibai-institut.de&group1=cbr. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nicosia at dmi.unict.it Mon Dec 26 05:58:51 2016 From: nicosia at dmi.unict.it (Giuseppe Nicosia) Date: Mon, 26 Dec 2016 11:58:51 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: 4th International Synthetic & Systems Biology Summer School, July 17-21, 2017, University of Cambridge, UK Message-ID: <0D73DA32-6DF3-4567-B7D9-85BC769C451E@dmi.unict.it> _________________________________________ Call for Participation (apologies for multiple copies) _________________________________________ 4th International Synthetic & Systems Biology Summer School *Biology meets Computer Science & Engineering* July 17-21, 2017, University of Cambridge, UK W: http://www.taosciences.it/ssbss/ E: ssbss.school at gmail.com F: https://www.facebook.com/ssbss.school/ APPLICATION DEADLINE: March 31, 2017 http://www.taosciences.it/ssbss/#application-form DESCRIPTION & GOALS: Recent advances in DNA synthesis have increased our ability to build biological systems. Synthetic Biology aims at streamlining the design and synthesis of robust and predictable biological systems using engineering design principles and advanced algorithms. Designing biological systems requires a deep understanding of how genes and proteins are organized and interact in living cells: Systems Biology aims at elucidating the cellular organization at gene, protein and network level using computational and biochemical methods. The Synthetic and Systems Biology Summer School (SSBSS) is a full-immersion five-day residential summer school at the Robinson College, University of Cambridge, UK on cutting-edge advances in systems and synthetic biology with lectures delivered by world-renowned experts. The school provides a stimulating environment for students (from Master students to PhD students), Post-Docs, early career researches, academics and industry leaders. Participants will also have the chance to present their results, and to interact with their peers, in a friendly and constructive environment. LIST OF SPEAKERS: * Antonino Cattaneo, Scuola Normale Superiore Pisa, Italy * Jasmin Fisher, Microsoft Research & Cambridge Systems Biology Centre, UK * Carole Goble, University of Manchester, UK * Jim Haseloff, University of Cambridge, UK * Jay Keasling, University of California, Berkeley, USA Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, USA Joint BioEnergy Institute, USA * Edda Klipp, Humboldt University, Germany * Natalio Krasnogor, Centre for Synthetic Biology and Bioexploitation, Newcastle University, UK * Markus Ralser, Cambridge Systems Biology Centre, University of Cambridge, UK & The Francis Crick Institute London, UK * Uwe Sauer, Institute of Molecular Systems Biology, ETH Zurich, Switzerland * Sarah Teichmann, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute & EMBL, European Bioinformatics Institute, UK SCHOOL DIRECTORS: * Massimo Gulisano, University of Catania, Italy * Giuseppe Nicosia, University of Catania, Italy * Steve G. Oliver, University of Cambridge, UK CALL FOR POSTERS & TALKS: The International Synthetic & Systems Biology Summer School is especially aimed to provide a stimulating environment for young researchers, Post-Doc and Ph.D. Students. They will have the possibility to present the results of their research activities on the topic of the summer school, and to interact with their scientific peers, in a friendly and constructive way. Applicants may submit an abstract to present their results. The abstract should be submitted before 31 March 2017. Suitable space will be reserved to the applicants for showing their posters. The poster must be written in English. For your poster, a board will be provided which measures 90cm tall by 70cm wide. You need to print and bring with you the poster to the school. Push tacks or Velcro adhesive will be provided at the conference to mount your poster to the board. POSTER & TALK SUBMISSION: Applicant may submit a research abstract for presentation using the Application Form. School directors and the Scientific Committee will review the abstracts and will recommend for poster or short-oral presentation. Abstract should be submitted by March 31, 2017. The abstracts will be published on the electronic hands-out material of the summer school. http://www.taosciences.it/ssbss/#application-form PREVIOUS EDITIONS: http://www.taosciences.it/ssbss2016/ http://www.taosciences.it/ssbss2015/ http://www.taosciences.it/ssbss2014/ MORE INFORMATION: W: http://www.taosciences.it/ssbss/ E: ssbss.school at gmail.com F: https://www.facebook.com/ssbss.school/ * Please help us distributing in your circles (emails, blogs, and social networks) the call for participation and call for oral talks/posters for SSBSS 2017. Together we will make SSBSS 2017 a great event! * SSBSS - Synthetic & Systems Biology Summer School Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/238417586492061/ Computational Synthetic Biology Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1014624245288596/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From geazzo at gmail.com Wed Dec 28 06:31:51 2016 From: geazzo at gmail.com (George Azzopardi) Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2016 12:31:51 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: CFP - 2nd International Workshop of Computational Models of the Visual Cortex (CMVC), Hoboken, New Jersey, USA, 15-17 March, 2017 References: Message-ID: Dear All, We are pleased to announce The Second International Workshop on Computational Models of the Visual Cortex (CMVC) as part of the BICT (Bio-inspired Information and Communication Technologies) conference, which will be held in Hoboken, New Jersey, 15-17 March (http://bionetics.org/2017/show/home ) Background Much has been advanced since the early works of the Nobel prize winners Hubel and Wiesel about the function of neurons in the primary visual cortex of cats? brains. That work has been the source of inspiration of abundant neurophysiological studies to unveil the functionality of neurons in different areas of visual cortex. These experiments resulted in large amounts of data, which could then be used to design computational models to behave similarly to certain neurons in visual cortex. The contribution of such models is two-fold. They contribute to the better understanding of how visual information is processed in the brain, and they also contribute for the development of more robust algorithms in computer vision applications. The aim of this workshop is to bring together recent development of computational modelling of the visual cortex of the brain: Single cell modeling. Hierarchy of visual cortex areas Feedforward, feedback and inhibitory mechanisms. The appearance of neuronal properties: sparsity and selectivity. Circuitry: hierarchical representations and connections between layers. Selecting where to look: saliency and attention. Object recognition Contour detection Stereo Learning Important Dates Full papers due: January 15, 2017 Authors Notified: January 31, 2017 Camera-ready due: February 10, 2017 Paper submission We invite you to submit regular papers (up to 8 pages each), short papers (up to 4 pages each) or poster/demo papers (up to 2 pages each) in ACM's paper template. Up to two extra pages are allowed for each paper with extra page charges. See http://bionetics.org/2017/show/cf-calls for more details. Only PDF format is acceptable. Papers must be submitted to EasyChair: https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=cmvc2017 For more information about the CMVC workshop please visit: http://cmvc.bionetics.org/2017/show/home Sincerely yours, Antonio Rodriguez-Sanchez , PhD George Azzopardi , PhD Co-chairs of CMVC'2017 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ralph.etiennecummings at gmail.com Wed Dec 28 13:38:30 2016 From: ralph.etiennecummings at gmail.com (Ralph Etienne-Cummings) Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2016 13:38:30 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: 2017 Neuromorphic Cognition Engineering Workshop: Call for Topics Proposals Message-ID: Call for Topic Area Proposals2017 Neuromorphic Cognition Engineering Workshop Telluride, Colorado, June 25 ?July 14, 2017 DEADLINE: January 15th, 2017 We are accepting proposals for Topic Areas in the 2017 Telluride Neuromorphic Cognition Engineering Workshop. The Telluride Neuromorphic Cognition Engineering Workshop has been running successfully for over 20 years, and has been highly influential in shaping the field of neuromorphic engineering and serving as a forum connecting across disciplines such as neuroscience, cognitive science, machine learning, robotics, computer vision, signal processing, and electrical engineering. For the 2017 workshop, we support topics and projects in neuromorphic cognition, with a focus on the theme of Neuromorphic Autonomous Agents. With the recent progress in AI and machine learning algorithms, machines that can generalize their knowledge to new situations are becoming a reality. We seek projects on autonomy, specifically involving neuromorphic and bio-inspired solutions on problems of perception, neural signal analysis and cognition. Projects may focus on developments in robotics, learning, control, sensors, language and reasoning, and computational/experimental aspects of systems that can accomplish goals with limited human intervention. We particularly encourage projects aiming towards solving ?everyday? tasks that biological brains solve with ease, but which pose significant challenges to artificial computing systems of any form, neuromorphic or not. In particular we support projects that have the potential to showcase advantagesof brain-inspired sensors, computing platforms, cognitive architectures, or algorithmic principles, or establish new links between neuromorphic technology and other disciplines. Proposals aiming to bring to reality the capabilities of hardware technologies and state-of-the-art approaches from related disciplines are also strongly encouraged. Topic proposals should include educational components such as hands-on tutorials and overview presentations that should preferably run during the first week of the workshop. Successful proposals in the past have focused on topics such as navigating through an unknown environment, visual and auditory understanding of scenes and human actions, adaptively manipulating unknown or complex objects in the service of a task, neural network architectures for cognitive computing and their efficient hardware implementation, EEG-based systems to decode acoustic events, neuroprosthetic control, etc. Topic areas for this summer's Telluride Neuromorphic Cognition Engineering Workshop will be chosen from proposals submitted to the organizers. Topic areas can span many aspects related to the overall theme of the workshop; project organizers are expected to be actively involved in coordination activities with other areas, and inviting top researchers covering different aspects of their project. Ideally, topic areas should be focused around potential applications of neuromorphic cognitive systems that can result in impressive demonstrators as the result of three weeks of focused work. In addition, topic areas are meant to educate participating students, establish new links between disciplines, critically evaluate competing approaches, and encourage after-workshop collaboration between groups. Topic area leaders will receive housing for themselves and four invitees, and limited travel funds. Topic area leaders will help to define the field of neuromorphic cognition engineering through the projects they pursue and the people they invite. They shape their topic by inviting speakers and project staff (the invitees) and by initiating topic discussions during and prior to the workshop. Teams of (no more than) two organizers are required, and attendance of at least one of the organizers for the full duration of the workshop is required. Pre-workshop topic area choices and study assignments. At least one week before the workshop begins, each topic area will be required to prepare and distribute study materials that constitute: 1) an introductory presentation (e.g., pptx, video, review paper) of the fundamental knowledge associated with the topic area that everyone at the workshop should be exposed to, and 2) a collection of a few critical papers that the participants in the topic area should read before the workshop. The topic area should 3) begin a serious group discussion of the projects (e.g., via the workshop wiki, Skype, email, etc). The maximum 3-page proposals should include: 1. Title of topic area. 2. Names of the two topic leaders, their affiliations, and contact information (email addresses). Please note that there can only be TWO topic leaders, other co-organizers or supporting staff can be named as invitees. 3. A paragraph explaining the focus and goals of the topic area and its relation to the theme. 4. A list of possible specific topic area projects. 5. A proposal how to prepare students for the project, including a list of planned tutorial talks at the workshop and preparatory material (websites, software, video lectures, ?) for students. 6. A list of example invitees (up to six names and institutions). No commitments necessary. 7. Any other material that fits within the three-page limit that will help us make a smart choice. Send your topic area proposal in pdf or text format to org17 at neuromorphs.net with subject line containing "topic area proposal". If you do not get a response confirming receipt of your proposal, please contact one of the workshop directors directly. Proposals must be received by January 15, 2017; proposalreceived after the deadline may still be considered if space is available. After a first evaluation the workshop directors will interview the group organizers via phone or Skype before the final selection of topics. We expect to accept 3-4 topic areas. We hope to have significant turn-over each year in the topic areas and leaders to ensure fresh new ideas and participants. See the Institute of Neuromorphic Engineering (www.ine-web.org) for background information on the workshop and neuromorphs.net for past workshop wikis. We look forward to your topic proposals! Deadline: January 15, 2017 The Workshop Directors: Cornelia Ferm?ller (University of Maryland), Ralph Etienne-Cummings (Johns Hopkins Univ.) Shih-Chii Liu (University of Zurich and ETH Zurich), Tim Horiuchi (University of Maryland), Katalin Gothard (University of Arizona), Michael Pfeiffer (Robert Bosch Corporate Research), Francisco Barranco (University of Granada) Former 2007-2012 Workshop Director: Tobi Delbruck (University of Zurich and ETH Zurich) -- Ralph Etienne-Cummings, PhD, FIEEE Professor and Chairman Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Computational Sensor Motor Systems Lab Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics The Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, MD [image: cid:image001.png at 01CFC064.B58B46A0] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 20171 bytes Desc: not available URL: From robert.jenssen at uit.no Thu Dec 29 08:19:26 2016 From: robert.jenssen at uit.no (Robert Jenssen) Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2016 13:19:26 +0000 Subject: Connectionists: =?iso-8859-1?q?Scandinavian_Conference_on_Image_A?= =?iso-8859-1?q?nalysis_=28SCIA=29=2C_Troms=F8_=28=22north_pole=22=29=2C_N?= =?iso-8859-1?q?orway=2C_12-14_June_2017?= In-Reply-To: <1478687226366.48355@uit.no> References: <1447920382605.62932@uit.no>, <1456127094090.11792@uit.no>, <1478687226366.48355@uit.no> Message-ID: <1483017583153.62500@uit.no> Updated CfP: The 20th conference in the long tradition of Scandinavian Conferences on Image Analysis will take place in Troms?, Norway on June 12-14, 2017. For more information, and for updated information for authors, please visit: http://scia2017.org/ * 3D vision * Color and multispectral image analysis * Computational imaging and graphics * Faces and gestures * Feature extraction and segmentation * Human-centered computing * Matching, registration and alignment * Medical and biomedical image analysis * Motion analysis * Object and scene recognition * Machine learning and pattern recognition * Remote sensing image analysis * Robot vision * Video and multimedia analysis * IR image processing * Deep convolutional neural networks * Signal processing and applications Being 350 km north of the arctic circle, Troms? is the northernmost city in the world with a population above 75,000. From 20 May to 20 July the midnight sun shines, which makes it possible to participate in various activities around the clock. In general Troms? has a mild climate for such a northerly destination because of its seaside location and the warming effect of the Gulf stream. Troms? is easily accessible from other Norwegian cities and from abroad. For more information, visit Troms? website: https://www.visittromso.no/en SCIA 2017, the Scandinavian Conference on Image Analysis, is a biennial and international scientific conference organized by the national pattern recognition societies in the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden). The conference series was established by pattern recognition, image analysis and computer vision pioneers in the universities of the Nordic countries. SCIA is a well known international conference acknowledged by the researchers in the fields of computer vision, image analysis, pattern recognition, and multimedia. ? Dates * Deadline for paper submission: 9 January 2017 * Acceptance notification to authors: 22 March 2017 * Camera ready: 4 April 2017 * Registration for paper presenters: 4 April 2017 * Conference: 12-14 June 2017 For more please contact General Chair: Robert Jenssen, UiT Machine Learning Group (robert.jenssen at uit.no) Program Chairs: Puneet Sharma (puneet.sharma at uit.no) and Filippo M. Bianchi (filippo.m.bianchi at uit.no), UiT - The Arctic University of Norway ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nian.zhang6 at gmail.com Thu Dec 29 11:33:15 2016 From: nian.zhang6 at gmail.com (Nian Ashlee Zhang) Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2016 11:33:15 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: ISNN2017 Final Call for Papers - International Symposium on Neural Networks, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan Message-ID: *Final Call for Pap**er**s* http://conference.cs.cityu.edu.hk/isnn/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Updated news:* Upon numerous requests, the submission deadline is postponed to January 10, 2017. Post-symposium tutorial/workshop will be arranged in Hakodate/Muroran on June 24-26, 2017. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The 14th International Symposium on Neural Networks (ISNN 2017) will be held in Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan during June 21-23, 2017, following the successes of previous events. Located in northern island of Hokkaido, Sapporo is the fourth largest Japanese city and a popular summer/winter tourist venue. ISNN 2017 aims to provide a high-level international forum for scientists, engineers, and educators to present the state of the art of neural network research and applications in related fields. The symposium will feature plenary speeches given by world renowned scholars, regular sessions with broad coverage, and special sessions focusing on popular topics. Authors are invited to submit full-length papers by the submission deadline through the online submission system. The submission of a paper implies that the paper is original and has not been submitted under review or is not copyright-protected elsewhere and will be presented by an author if accepted. All submitted papers will be refereed by experts in the field based on the criteria of originality, significance, quality, and clarity. Papers presented at ISNN 2017 will be published in the EI-indexed proceedings in the Springer LNCS series and selected good papers will be included in special issues of several SCI journals. *Important Dates* Extended Paper submission deadline: January 1, 2017 January 10, 2017 Notification of acceptance: February 1, 2017 Camera-ready copy and author registration: March 1, 2017 Conference: June 21-23, 2017 Post-symposium tutorial/workshop: June 24-26, 2017 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From francisco.pereira at gmail.com Fri Dec 30 09:19:16 2016 From: francisco.pereira at gmail.com (Francisco Pereira) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 09:19:16 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: job: machine learning researcher in the NIMH IRP Message-ID: Full details here: https://github.com/nih-fmrif/mlc_job_ad and here: https://github.com/nih-fmrif/ADS_job_ad HIRING: Machine learning in neuroimaging researcher Who we are: The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is the lead federal agency for research on mental disorders. NIMH is one of the 27 Institutes and Centers that make up the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is responsible for all federally funded biomedical research in US. NIH is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The NIH is a highly rated employer at glassdoor.com with very competitive salary and benefits packages. The Machine Learning Core (MLC) is a new group created to support the use of machine learning methods in analyzing human neuroimaging data, collected within the NIMH Intramural Research Program (IRP) or from functional and anatomic imaging databases worldwide. The MLC will both develop new methods and provide education and support to NIMH IRP researchers using machine learning approaches. What you will do: You and the team will be responsible for assisting NIMH IRP investigators in using machine learning methods to answer clinical and scientific questions. Key areas of work include biomarkers to help diagnose mental health and neurologic disorders, as well as the development of models of mental processes in healthy subjects. You will help devise research approaches using prediction models that combine imaging and non-imaging data, and leverage structured knowledge resources (databases, scientific literature, etc) to generate explanations and hypotheses. You will also develop new methods to address the unique research needs in our environment. You will have the resources of the NIH HPC Cluster at your disposal as well as additional help from the AWS cloud. All tools and code will be open source and freely distributed. The MLC will provide education and outreach to further the use of machine learning across the NIMH IRP. You will be involved in designing and teaching courses on basic methods and data analysis. You will help run data analysis clinics and consults to help identify research needs, and mentor junior researchers in joint projects. Who you are: We are seeking candidates with practical machine learning experience, e.g. training of classification and regression models, statistical testing of results, interpretation and visualization of key aspects of models. Beyond this, we would like knowledge of optimization and statistics, insofar as they bear on machine learning method development. Experience working with neuroimaging data (MRI, as well as MEG/EEG) will be considered very favorably, in particular the generation of quantitative measures to use as features (e.g. activation maps, functional and structural connectivity, scalar maps, cortical structure volumes, etc.). Finally, you should have demonstrable experience coding in languages currently used in data-intensive, scientific computing such as Python, MATLAB or R (and relevant data processing libraries). How to apply: Email your resume (your email can serve as a cover letter) to MLCORE-JOBSEARCH at mail.nih.gov Questions are welcome. The National Institutes of Health is an equal opportunity employer. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mhb0 at lehigh.edu Fri Dec 30 15:03:11 2016 From: mhb0 at lehigh.edu (Mark H. Bickhard) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 15:03:11 -0500 Subject: Connectionists: Interactivist Summer Institute 2017 Message-ID: GENERAL INFORMATION Interactivist Summer Institute 2017 July 21 - 24, 2017 Ohrid, Macedonia The Interactivist Summer Institute is dedicated to exploring the frontiers of understanding of life, mind, and cognition. There is a growing recognition - across many disciplines - that phenomena of life and mind, including cognition and representation, are emergents of far-from-equilibrium, interactive, autonomous systems. In such a view, mind and biology, mind and agent, are re-united. The classical treatment of cognition and representation within a formalist framework of encodingist assumptions is increasingly recognized as a fruitless maze of blind alleys. From neurobiology to robotics, from cognitive science to philosophy of mind and language, dynamic and interactive alternatives are being explored. Dynamic systems approaches, enactivist and autonomous agent research join in the effort. The interactivist model offers a theoretical approach to matters of life and mind, ranging from evolutionary- and neuro-biology (including the emergence of biological function) through representation, perception, motivation, memory, learning and development, emotions, consciousness, language, action theory, rationality, sociality, personality and psychopathology, and ethics. This work has developed interfaces with studies of central nervous system functioning, the ontology of process, autonomous agents, philosophy of science, and all areas of psychology, philosophy, and cognitive science that address the person. http://www.lehigh.edu/~interact/index.html Mark H. Bickhard Lehigh University 17 Memorial Drive East Bethlehem, PA 18015 mark at bickhard.name http://bickhard.ws/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From behnke at cs.uni-bonn.de Fri Dec 30 12:16:52 2016 From: behnke at cs.uni-bonn.de (Sven Behnke) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 18:16:52 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Postdoc and PhD Positions in Deep Learning and Robotics @ University of Bonn Message-ID: <980a108f-6c6d-6e45-2f2f-b9e15c2c2ab8@cs.uni-bonn.de> The Autonomous Intelligent Systems Group of University of Bonn invites applications for multiple Postdoctoral and fully funded PhD positions. Candidates should have a background in one of the following research areas: * Deep learning, * Computer vision, * Pattern recognition, * Machine learning, * Simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM), * Manipulation and locomotion planning, * Human-robot interaction, * Micro aerial vehicles, * Service robots, * Humanoid robots, or * Search and rescue robots. Candidates for Postdoctoral positions must hold a PhD with very good results in computer science, robotics, electrical engineering or a related field. Top-level publications and good organizational skills are important. Successful candidates will have the opportunity to develop their own research agenda and at the same time contribute to the ongoing projects linked below, guiding PhD students and master students. Payment will be according to TV-L-E14 (52,000-66,000 Euros per annum, depending on experience). Candidates for PhD positions must hold a very good university Master's degree in computer science, mathematics, electrical engineering, or a related field. A strong mathematical background and programming skills are necessary. Successful candidates will conduct focused research towards a PhD in Computer Science and contribute to one of the ongoing projects linked below, guiding master and bachelor students. Payment will be according to TV-L-E13 (44,000- 51,000 Euros per annum, depending on experience). Applications in PDF format should be sent by email to behnke @ ais . uni-bonn . de with the subject line "Postdoc Application AIS" or "PhD Application AIS". Please indicate in your cover letter your main achievements, the research area or project where you want to contribute, and your availability date. A list of publications and transcripts must be included. There is no application deadline. Positions will be filled as soon as possible. Autonomous Intelligent Systems Group: The University of Bonn has a long tradition in computer vision and robotics research and multiple outstanding groups in these areas. The Autonomous Intelligent Systems Group, headed by Sven Behnke, has developed award-winning cognitive robot systems, including domestic service robots, autonomous micro aerial vehicles, humanoid soccer robots, robots for mobile manipulation in rough terrain, bin-picking robots, and robots for intuitive human-robot interaction. Contributions include deep learning architectures and algorithms, efficient methods for RGB-D and laser-based SLAM, semantic environment perception, robot navigation, object manipulation and tool use, bipedal walking, multimodal human-robot interaction, and learning from demonstrations and own experience. Useful links: * Ongoing projects in Autonomous Intelligent Systems group: http://www.ais.uni-bonn.de/jobs.html * Autonomous Intelligent Systems group: http://www.ais.uni-bonn.de * Robotics in Bonn: http://robotics.uni-bonn.de * Bonn Computer Science: https://www.informatik.uni-bonn.de/en * University of Bonn: https://www.uni-bonn.de/startpage?set_language=en * Federal City of Bonn: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonn From mpavone at dmi.unict.it Sat Dec 31 07:03:51 2016 From: mpavone at dmi.unict.it (Mario Pavone) Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2016 13:03:51 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: AIS: Algorithms, Simulation, Modelling & Theory - SS @ IEEE CEC 2017 Message-ID: <20161231130351.Horde.AEpAa_ph4B9YZ56nrYW1TgA@mbox.dmi.unict.it> * Apologies if you received multiple copies * Please kindly forward to those who may be interested. CALL FOR PAPERS Artificial Immune Systems: Algorithms, Simulation, Modelling & Theory IEEE CEC 2017 Special Session June 20-23, 2017, Donostia - San Sebasti?n, Spain http://ieee-cis-ais.org/ais-cec2017/ ais.cec2017 at gmail.com *** SUBMISSION deadline: January 16, 2017 The Immune System protects organisms against diseases, and over the years has been an important source of inspiration for the development of algorithms to be applied in a wide range of applications, such as learning, pattern recognition, optimisation and classification. Many of these algorithms are built on solid theoretical foundations, through understanding mathematical models and computational simulation of aspects of the immune system. The scope of this research area ranges from modelling to simulation of the immune system, to the development of novel engineering solutions to complex problems, and bridges several disciplines to provide new insights into immunology, computer science, mathematics and engineering. This special session aims to focus on the recent advances on Artificial Immune Systems (AIS) field, also offering new conceptual models for understanding the dynamics that underlie the immune system. This special session is supported by IEEE CIS Task Force on Artificial Immune Systems (http://ieee-cis-ais.org). Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: - Computational & Mathematical modelling of the Immune System; - Theoretical aspects of immune inspired algorithms; - Novel algorithms and new immune operators; - Benchmarking immune inspired algorithms against other techniques; - Empirical and Theoretical investigations into performance and complexity of immune inspired algorithms; - Hybridisation of immune inspired algorithms with other techniques; - Systems & Synthetic Immunology. All the papers have to be submitted electronically through the congress application. The deadline for contribution paper submission is *January 16, 2017*. Authors are invited to submit original and unpublished papers on any topics related to AIS. * IMPORTANT DATES: paper submission: January 16, 2017 notification of acceptance: February 26, 2017 final paper submission: March 12, 2017 Conference dates: June 5-8, 2017 * PAPER SUBMISSION: Manuscripts should be prepared according to the standard format and page limit of regular papers specified in CEC 2017 webpage (http://www.cec2017.org), and submitted via the official submission system. Special session papers are treated the same way as regular conference papers. Please specify that your paper is for the special session on AIS: Algorithms, Simulation, Modelling & Theory. All accepted papers will be published in the CEC electronic proceedings and included in the IEEE Xplore digital library, and indexed by EI Compendex. * ORGANIZERS: Thomas Jansen, Aberystwyth University, UK Mario Pavone, University of Catania, Italy Jon Timmis, University of York, UK -- Dr. Mario Pavone (PhD) Assistant Professor Department of Mathematics and Computer Science University of Catania V.le A. Doria 6 - 95125 Catania, Italy tel: 0039 095 7383038 fax: 0039 095 330094 Email: mpavone at dmi.unict.it http://www.dmi.unict.it/mpavone/ ====================================================== From tarek.besold at googlemail.com Fri Dec 30 06:39:59 2016 From: tarek.besold at googlemail.com (Tarek R. Besold) Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2016 12:39:59 +0100 Subject: Connectionists: Deadline extension JAIR Special Track on Deep Learning, Knowledge Representation, and Reasoning: February 28, 2017 Message-ID: <004d01d26291$7408f610$5c1ae230$@gmail.com> === EXTENDED SUBMISSION DEADLINE: FEBRUARY 28, 2017 === Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research (JAIR) Special Track on Deep Learning, Knowledge Representation, and Reasoning ( http://www.jair.org/specialtrack-dlkrr-call.html) We are pleased to invite papers for submission to a JAIR special track on deep learning, KR, and reasoning, as such also naturally targeting work in neural-symbolic integration and related areas. The recent success of deep neural networks at tasks such as language modelling, computer vision, and speech recognition has attracted considerable interest from industry and academia. Achieving a better understanding and widespread use of such models involves the use of Knowledge Representation and Reasoning together with sound Machine Learning methodologies and systems. The goal of the special track is to serve as a home for the publication of leading research in deep learning towards cognitive tasks, focusing on applications of neural computation to advanced AI tasks requiring knowledge representation and reasoning. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: knowledge extraction and reasoning using deep networks, the representation of rich symbolic knowledge by neural systems, the integration of logic and probabilities using neural networks, structure learning and relational learning using recurrent networks, neural-symbolic cognitive agents and models, theory revision and transfer learning with neural networks, applications in natural language understanding, visual intelligence, audio, music and signal processing, multimodal learning, education and assessment, and other tasks of a cognitive nature. The timetable for the special track looks as follows: Deadline for submissions (EXTENDED): February 28, 2017 First round of notifications: end of May 2017 Deadline for re-submissions: end of August, 2017 Final notifications: end of October, 2017 Final manuscripts due: end of November, 2017 We hope that this special track will provide a forum to our communities for showcasing highest-quality research and application work, by this establishing a repository which can serve as a form of "academic reference beacon" for future work to build upon. Further details concerning submission formats and procedure can be found at http://www.jair.org/specialtrack-dlkrr-call.html. On behalf of the track editor and all associate editors, Tarek R. Besold (University of Bremen, Germany) Artur D'Avila Garcez (City University London, UK) Kristian Kersting (TU Dortmund, Germany) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: